Occassionally, a startup will get a term sheet from an angel with a pre-money valuation less than the investment amount (i.e., the angel wants control of the startup). And “control” isn’t just defined as a majority of the shares of the company — if the angel asks for approval of
If you follow this blog, you know that I think convertible debt is a good structure for a startup’s angel round. The main feature of the convertible note is that the debt investment made by the angel investor will typically later convert into equity. For this article, let’s assume this
A variety of model startup seed funding docs have been released in the past year or so: TechStars Series AA Preferred, YCombinator Series AA Preferred, and TheFunded Founder Institute’s Plain Preferred. And as I mentioned last week, Fenwick & West and Andreessen Horowitz released the Series Seed model documents. The
“The Series Seed Documents are a standardized set of documents that can be quickly and easily deployed for a seed investment: to help get a company financed properly, legally, quickly, and intelligently.” The drafters, Fenwick & West and Andreessen Horowitz, imply these docs should be used for $500,000 to $1,500,000
Your startup should never have to pay $$$ to pitch to potential investors. Period. Jason Calacanis authored an epic post on the topic of paying to pitch as well. It’s a great read. Just remember that no matter how hard it is to source funds, your startup should never have
Convertible promissory notes do not include a stated pre-money valuation. Instead, the convertible note seed investor and startup agree that the pre-money valuation for the convertible note investment will be determined by the pre-money valuation the startup receives at the Series A round. However, the convertible note investor does not
Convertible debt is a type of security frequently issued by startups when raising capital in their seed round. With convertible debt, the startup issues the seed investor a promissory note, for the investment amount, that contains a conversion feature. The conversion feature is the mechanism by which the debt (the
A term sheet is an outline of the deal terms that helps frame the contemplated transaction for both parties. Term Sheets for financings and acquisitions are usually not binding. However, it is quite common to see various sections of the term sheet binding, including: –No Shop or Go Shop Clauses:
Raising capital is not easy. While startup entrepreneurs usually have a strong network of people within their own industry, many entrepreneurs lack contacts at venture capital firms and other angel groups. And even if the entrepreneur knows about such funding sources, it’s difficult to get solid intros to such people.
An option pool is an amount of a startup’s common stock reserved for future issuances to employees, directors, advisors, and consultants. The option pool is created pursuant to a written plan in order to satisfy Rule 701 which provides a registration exemption from Section 5 the 1933 Securities Act. Via
