Author: Ryan Roberts
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Venture Capital Bridge Extension Round Structures
Thinking about all the potential bridge extension rounds that will need to be closed in late 2024 and 2025, and here are my thoughts on the structure: If you do equity, and assuming it’s the same valuation, you could do an ‘extension round’ which essentially builds off the prior preferred round. This would increase the…
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How to Check Availability and Reserve Your Startup’s Name in Delaware
Delaware has a free online system for checking legal entity name availability. You can use it to see whether another business is already formed or registered in Delaware with the same name (or a confusingly similar name). The tool is available here: Delaware name reservation and availability search. How the Delaware name reservation system works…
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Importance of Using Exact Share Numbers Instead of Percentages
Startup founders love talking about equity in percentages. It’s intuitive, fast, and sounds fair: “We’ll give you 2%.” The problem is that companies don’t legally issue percentages. They issue exact share numbers of exact options amounts, approved by the board and reflected on a cap table. Vague percentage promises are one of the most common sources of avoidable…
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Sorry, Not Sorry: Still Delaware C Corporation for Early-Stage Tech Companies
If you plan to raise venture capital or sell your tech startup one day, it is extremely likely that you should form as a Delaware C corporation. In the last few years I have seen a disturbing trend of people calling themselves “startup lawyers” and steering high growth startups toward LLCs. In most venture-style cases,…
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Acceleration Book Update – 1 Month
I wanted to share a brief update on the launch of my startup law book: Acceleration. The book launched on March 5, 2019 and the next day I left for a family vacation on the other side of the world, so I did not do much of a marketing push beyond a blog post and…
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Acceleration Startup Law Book Title and Cover Design
Thought I might take some time to explain the origin of the title and the book cover design for “Acceleration: What All Entrepreneurs Must Know About Startup Law“. The Title: Acceleration Quite often, a new client starts our first meeting with something like: “We messed up the legal at our last startup, so we want…
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So I wrote a Startup Law Book called “Acceleration”
If you follow this blog, then you probably know new posts have been harder to find than a four-leafed clover in the desert. But I had a good reason — I’ve spent the good portion of the last 3 years putting together a startup law book, when I wasn’t doing my venture lawyer day job…
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Voting Rights of Vesting Shares
One of the most common questions I get when helping founders set up a new startup is: “Do my unvested shares have any voting rights?” Put differently, do you only get to vote based on the number of vested shares you have at a given time? Because founders often subject most (or all) of their…
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U.S. VC Process for Indian Startups
As a startup in India, closing on U.S. venture capital is similar to doing so if your company was completely US-based, with a few notable differences. I’ve represented several India-based startups through venture capital financings. To name just a few, clients have included Freshworks (formerly FreshDesk), WizRocket, and Shopalyst. They, along with other clients, have…
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Accelerator Investments Should Be Convertible Equity
I previously wrote that accelerator documents should be easy. At the time, I focused on adverse selection: the more difficult the terms or onboarding process (including the investment documents), the more likely the best startups would choose a different accelerator or decide not to join at all. As the accelerator ecosystem has evolved, and after…