Most of the time, employees are almost always in last place when a fundraising round happens, unless the board of directors agrees to employees selling first, which happens in tender offers which themselves are rare.

> When a startup does a fund-raising round, why don't employees get a chance to sell some of their vested equity to the new investors?

Every fundraising round terms are different which we will never know about. Some may not allow employees to sell at all until acquire or IPO.

Even if any of those liquidity events get triggered, when preferential shares are involved, an investor can sell before employees anyway. They can still sell on the private markets, or if they can't find any buyers they have their shares available on 'crowdfunding' sites to unaccredited retail investors (which is always a bad sign) and have them buy it.

The terms are stacked against employees and are just as valuable as a lottery ticket.