January 11, 2024 - When negotiating licenses to intellectual property (IP) or collaboration agreements (such as research partnerships, sponsored projects, and joint ventures), universities frequently ...

Three years ago, I met with a founder who had raised a massive seed round at a valuation that was at least five times the market rate. I asked what firm made the investment. She said it was not a ...

As described in my book The Art of Startup Fundraising, term sheets can be really scary for new start-up founders. More than anything, it’s the fear of the unknown, or of making a mistake that ...

A term sheet is a non-binding document that outlines the primary terms and conditions of a proposed investment or business deal. Typically used in the early stages of negotiations, it serves as a ...

The optimal timing to discuss term sheets in a transaction process can depend on many factors, including the goals of the partnering discussion. For simplification in this article, it will focus on ...

You’re in the thick of week two of negotiations on a term sheet with a potential investor and you can’t help but wonder why you’re spending so much time on a document that has “nonbinding” written all ...

For the past few months, I’ve been exploring some of the more confusing terminology in VC term sheets. In my last post, I discussed redemption rights. Today, I’m looking at the non-binding and ...

When we launched in 2016, we took the unusual approach of saying we’d buy common stock in startups. We believed then, and still do, that alignment with founders was more important than covering our ...

The Appellate Division has had occasion to specifically address the enforceability of terms sheets. A critical, but not necessarily dispositive, initial question is whether the term sheet itself ...