Emerging Companies and Startups
Technology has a profound impact on the way people understand, conduct, and think about business. Emerging and novel technologies with disruptive potential shape the market, as more and more companies rely on them to design and implement their projects. Similarly, startup projects increase in number, as entrepreneurs leverage the potential afforded by technology to carry out their innovative ideas.
Our team’s focus, interest, expertise, and experience align with the needs of emerging companies and startups. Our LawTech direction signifies our commitment and capability to facilitate the emergence and integration of technology, and even more so emerging, disruptive, and novel technology, to business models and activities. Our genuine interest in supporting entrepreneurship, innovation, novel, and forward business-thinking, combined with our specialized knowledge in startups and technology and our constant exposure to the tech ecosystem, render us the ideal legal counsel for emerging and startup companies/projects.
Our team attends to the legal needs of startup projects and emerging companies, accommodating the use of any technology that they might choose. Our understanding and practice in respect of various technologies, enable us to draft and negotiate agreements relating to and offer advice on, such technologies. The use of specific technology by startup projects and emerging companies gives rise to particular issues, which we may resolve thanks to our lawtech perspective. We help our clients obtain technology or other services from third parties on beneficial terms, acting as their advisor during negotiations, and undertaking all relevant drafting work, when needed. Mindful of the value added to startup projects and companies by the proper and clear ownership of intellectual property, we ensure the protection of all such intellectual property.
From a structural point of view, we undertake the setting up of the proper vehicle to carry out the relevant project and advise on the governance of such a vehicle, offering the conditions for a smooth relationship between the founders and various stakeholders. A significant aspect of a startup’s or an emerging company’s is to attract investment to grow and achieve its business objectives. Attracting investors is a very delicate endeavor, requiring carefully drafted and targeted content. Our clients rely on our experience to deliver and review all documentation put in place to attract investors, ranging from pitching documents/presentations, one-pagers, light papers, and whitepaper. Our experience has revealed that many projects benefit from the preparation of distinct documentation depending on the type of investors targeted each time and at each stage.
We support our clients in securing funding, preparing and reviewing investment agreements, and offering specialized advice to attract institutional investors, venture capitalists, or angel investors. The rise of emerging companies and startups parallels the rise of alternative funding methods. We keep in line with these developments and can accommodate such alternative funding sources. We advise on crowdfunding and crowd sales. We focus on the immense opportunity afforded by tokenization and the fractionalization of assets: we structure tokenization, advising on optimal ways to attract investors through such tokenization, we opine on the nature of tokens, we support the registration of tokens with crypto-exchanges. We offer legal advice on setting up and managing cryptocurrencies and digital wallets. In general, we assist design and plan token-based projects to offer efficiency to projects and attract investment opportunities.
Our extensive work with many startups and emerging companies places in a position to appreciate the area-specific legal needs of these companies. Startups typically follow a particular development path, which involves legal matters that differ from “traditional” companies with more conventional business plan deployment. As experts in the area, we make sure to properly address and settle these matters to help these companies flourish. Within this context, our team offers flexible and competitive price arrangements, and comprehensive and constant legal guidance, covering the startups’ needs from the stage of its conception until its launch and implementation towards its growth.
A testament to our firm’s area-leading position is our founder’s wide and consistent recognition as a prominent and highly reputable legal advisor in the startup, innovation, and technology area. Our founder is chosen and trusted by numerous startup and emerging companies for her specialized knowledge, multi-jurisdictional practice, extensive experience, and effective legal guidance.
Our services are comprehensive and cover the whole range of emerging and startup companies’ legal needs. Indicatively, our main services are as follows:
- Startup and Emerging Company Formation and on-going support
- Advising solo entrepreneurs with their business needs
- Entrepreneurial business journey support
- Formation of a vehicle to accommodate startup projects (partnership, company, or any other corporate body, profit or non-profit)
- Advice on the structuring of the company and preparing relevant paperwork
- Consultation on relations between shareholders, directors, and corporate governance and drafting relevant agreements
- Advice on the administration of a company and fiduciary services, i.e. nominee director agreements, trustee services, and trust deeds, secretarial services, etc)
- Advice on any traditional or emerging technology and the relevant legal issues arising and drafting memorandum and opinion for any authority or organization in the public or private sector
- Preparation of Technology/IP assignment (esp. from founder to company)
- Advice on IP management and exploitation, registration of IP rights, and drafting of relevant agreements, such as assignment, licensing, software-as-a-service (SaaS) agreements, and drafting all necessary documentation/agreements
- Preparation, and review of pitching documents/presentation, one-pager, white paper, light paper
- Advice on the international standards applicable in each case
- Advice and assistance towards securing investment: preparation/review of investment agreements, negotiations/discussions with investors, assistance in carrying out due diligence for potential investors
- Drafting of any kind of investment agreement
- Advice on financing company, including institutional investors (e.g. banks), venture capital and angel investors, alternative/startup-appropriate means of finance (SAFE, convertible notes, SAFT, crowdfunding), and drafting of all relevant agreements
- Advice on fractionalization, securitization, and tokenization of assets and rights in such assets, registration of tokens with crypto-exchanges, and drafting of all relevant agreements or other documentation
- Advice on the digital wallet and cryptocurrency creation and management.
- Preparation of employment agreements and advice on employment matters.
- Preparation of agreements with third parties, such as software developers, service providers, suppliers, and customers, users of the startup’s products or services.
- Preparation of legal documentation to ensure compliant startup website, application, and platform.
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