Plan your BLACK UNICORN FACTORY NSO exercise
Calculator · free · no signup · pre-IPOBLACK UNICORN FACTORY is pre-IPO. Plan your NSO exercise tax (federal, state, FICA) at any expected valuation.
Beta · invite-only · AlphaLatitude Inc. · Free Tools
Your grant
Seeded from secondary-market data, as of Jun 14, 2026
Tax inputs
Hold strategy
Best after-tax payout — at year 1
$56,381
Hold 1 yr wins by $41,129 over Sell + invest.
Estimates only. Not financial advice.
Sell + invest
| Bargain element (sale − strike) | $25,000 |
| Federal | |
| State | |
| Medicare | −$363 |
| Additional Medicare | −$225 |
| Market gain over 1 yr at 10.0% | $1,423 |
| LTCG on diversified gain (fed + state + NIIT) | −$400 |
| Net at year 1 | $15,253 |
Sell every share immediately; invest the after-tax cash at the market return for 1 yr, then liquidate. Diversified — no single-stock concentration risk.
Exercise + hold 1 yr
Best payout| Sale proceeds (year 1) | |
| LTCG tax (federal + state + NIIT) | −$16,474 |
| Net at year 1 | $56,381 |
Sold 4,051 shares at exercise to cover strike + tax; 949 shares held 1 yr for LTCG.
Social Security + Medicare are payroll taxes (collectively called FICA) — they apply because you're exercising as a current employee.
Both columns are stated in year-1 dollars: sell-now proceeds compound at the market return and pay LTCG on the gain at year 1; any cash paid out of pocket on the hold side carries the same opportunity cost.
Net at year N — by hold period
Estimates only. Excludes AMT (NSOs do not trigger AMT), state-AMT, multi-state moves, and disqualifying-disposition edge cases. Not financial advice.
You calculated one NSO decision. The beta plans NSOs alongside RSUs and ISOs in a single multi-year tax plan.
Request beta access →About BLACK UNICORN FACTORY
BLACK UNICORN FACTORY is a privately held Cloud/SaaS company. S-1 filed May 6, 2026.
Last reported secondary-market price: $15 per share (as of 2026-06-14). Your own 409A may differ.
Equity grants at BLACK UNICORN FACTORY typically include incentive stock options (ISOs) and non-qualified stock options (NSOs).
Black Unicorn Factory launched in Los Angeles in 2020 under founder and CEO John (Johnny) Stewart, a serial entrepreneur with three decades in startup growth. The company functions as a pre-IPO accelerator that funds early-stage businesses through equity swaps and SEC-compliant alternative mechanisms (Reg CF, Reg A, Reg D) rather than cash. It has issued more than $500 million in equity across 150-plus companies, operates the Follow Me For Equity app (which awards startup equity for social-media promotion tasks), and struck a $110 million stock-for-stock barter agreement with BarterVentures in April 2025. A Nasdaq direct listing application was under review as of August 2025.
Sources: sec.gov · markets.financialcontent.com
Equity comp at BLACK UNICORN FACTORY
- Los Angeles startup accelerator and equity-crowdsourcing platform whose Follow Me For Equity product distributes equity in portfolio companies to gig-worker promoters. Direct employees, if any, are too few to have a standardized RSU program; the company is pursuing a direct listing path to Nasdaq rather than a conventional IPO.
Sources: blackunicornfactory.com
Researched 2026-05-11.
OptionsAhoy is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by BLACK UNICORN FACTORY.
BLACK UNICORN FACTORY NSO exercise creates ordinary income on the bargain element (federal, state, and FICA) at the price on the day you exercise. The calculator works at any valuation, so you can model your exercise cost at the current 409A FMV, an expected IPO price, or post-IPO scenarios.
Example: at BLACK UNICORN FACTORY's last reported price of $15, exercising 5,000 NSOs with a $4.5 strike creates a $52,500 bargain element, taxed as ordinary income on the day you exercise. Combined federal + state + FICA on that bargain typically lands between $14,175 and $23,625 depending on your bracket and state. The calculator above computes the exact figure for your situation and compares selling now vs. holding through the long-term capital-gains threshold.
All BLACK UNICORN FACTORY tools → · Use the generic NSO Exercise Calculator for any company.
BLACK UNICORN FACTORY equity questions
- How is a BLACK UNICORN FACTORY NSO exercise taxed?
- Exercising a non-qualified stock option (NSO) creates ordinary income on the bargain element (the price on the day you exercise minus your strike), subject to federal income tax, state income tax, and FICA. The calculator above computes that tax for your BLACK UNICORN FACTORY grant and compares selling the shares now against holding past the one-year mark for long-term capital-gains treatment.
- Does BLACK UNICORN FACTORY grant ISOs, NSOs, or RSUs?
- Equity compensation at BLACK UNICORN FACTORY typically takes the form of incentive stock options (ISOs) and non-qualified stock options (NSOs). Incentive stock options can trigger the alternative minimum tax (AMT) when you exercise.
- Are BLACK UNICORN FACTORY shares eligible for QSBS?
- They might be. Qualified small business stock (QSBS) under Internal Revenue Code Section 1202 can exclude federal tax on much of the gain when shares were acquired at original issuance from a C-corporation while its gross assets were under $50 million, and held at least five years. Whether your BLACK UNICORN FACTORY shares qualify turns on when you acquired them and the company's asset size at that time.
One piece of the puzzle.
OptionsAhoy plans your BLACK UNICORN FACTORY equity alongside hedging, vesting, and de-concentration, across bullish, neutral, and bearish market scenarios. Free during beta.