Refresh a 409A

Priced round, M&A LOI, secondary transaction, or public-listing event. The active 409A is automatically marked superseded_by_event on the trigger; this call requests the replacement.

{
  "trigger": "material_event",
  "material_event_kind": "m_and_a_loi",
  "rush": true
}

M&A LOIs almost always set rush: true since the deal closing window typically demands a fresh 409A on the timeline of weeks, not months.

Active 409A is still in safe-harbor (under 12 months) but a hire wave is about to trigger 50+ ISO grants and you don't want to risk staleness mid-wave. Refresh proactively.

{
  "trigger": "pre_grant",
  "rush": false
}

The new valuation supersedes the active one as soon as it's accepted; any in-flight grants reference whichever valuation was active at grant time, so an in-flight wave doesn't get reshuffled mid-stream.

Engage rush appraisal — ~5 business days vs. 15 standard, with a ~3× engagement fee. Matter routes to appraisers on its rush-SLA roster; not every appraiser participates.

{
  "trigger": "material_event",
  "material_event_kind": "priced_round",
  "appraiser_preference": "scalar",
  "rush": true
}

Scope policies often cap rush usage (max_rush_per_period) — rush is for genuine deal-timeline pressure, not standard cadence.

Pre-revenue companies that don't want to pay for an appraiser can issue a board-determined valuation directly via POST /v1/entities/{id}/valuations with provider: "board". Critical: this does not establish 409A safe harbor — on audit, the company has to prove the methodology was reasonable. Acceptable for the very first 409A on a freshly-formed entity with no economic activity; risky for anything beyond.

curl -X POST https://api.mattermode.com/v1/entities/ent_Nq3KcAbc/valuations \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $MATTER_KEY" \
  -H "Matter-Version: 2026-05-01" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: $(uuidgen)" \
  -d '{
    "fair_market_value_per_share": {"amount": 1, "currency": "usd"},
    "provider": "board",
    "methodology": "Pre-revenue start-up, board-determined per IRC §409A(b)(5)(iv)(C). Methodology factors include comparable transactions in similar early-stage entities and the par value of common stock.",
    "effective_date": "2026-04-25",
    "expires_at": "2027-04-25"
  }'

This direct-creation pattern still needs a board-acceptance consent; chain with run-a-board-consent kind: 409a_adoption against the resulting valuation_id.