Early Stage Funding and Venture Capital
We have extensive experience acting for both investors and investees in relation to the provision of equity and debt funding into growing technology businesses.
Funding is at the core of virtually all early and mid-stage tech companies, and in some sectors such as biotech, where companies will be pre-revenue for potentially many years, it is their lifeblood.
We act for companies through friends and family rounds, business angel investment, multiple venture capital rounds and larger private equity transactions. The needs of each company will vary according to their own resources, the strength of their IP portfolio and business proposition, and the experience of the management team involved. Typically we assist entrepreneurs through:
- introductions to potential funders
- advice on term sheets
- preparing companies for legal due diligence and managing the process
- review and drafting of investment/shareholder agreements
- drafting articles of association
- provision of service agreements
- implementing employee incentives and options
- reviewing and drafting of share warrants
- reviewing and drafting of convertible loans
- drafting of the various board/shareholders resolutions required along with relevant Companies House filings.
Given our experience in action for both investees and investors we are well placed to see both sides of funding transactions and the key issues for both sides. We adopt a pragmatic and commercial approach, appreciative of the protections required by both sides, but at the same time well aware that ultimately the costs of any equity funding come out of the amount raised, so it is in neither side’s interests for costs to spiral.
