SVASE (the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs) provides a database of venture capital firms and angel groups for use by SVASE members that are seeking funding.
Here is SVASE’s description of the database’s search capabilities:
As an additional benefit, SVASE members can search the bios of over 450 partners and the mission statements of over 140 VC firms and Angel organizations, representing early stage Venture Capital in Silicon Valley, to find the firms and partners that will be interested in taking a look at your business plan. To help with your search for Investors and Funding, we have highlighted several specific search terms below, but just like Google, you can search on any word, or group of words, you like. The search will return the names of firms and partners related to the search words, plus contact information of the firms, and the partners, where available.
SVASE membership costs $99 per year and offers many benefits in addition to the VC / angel group database.
This blog does not provide legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. If you need legal advice, please contact an attorney directly.
Let’s assume that you are one of the founders of a new corporation. Should the corporation provide stock certificates to shareholders when their shares are issued?
The answer is “yes” – and not merely because the founders will feel good having tangible evidence of their ownership interests.
Although California Corporations Code Section 416(b) allows the issuance of shares without certificates under certain circumstances, as a practical matter certificates usually are necessary for a closely held corporation (one that is owned by a small number of shareholders).
Corporations Code Section 418 specifies a variety of circumstances under which share certificates must include written statements providing notice of the existence of those circumstances. These include, for example, restrictions on share transfers or voting rights – both of which are common in multi-founder corporations.
Furthermore, that section states that if a required statement is not included on the certificate, the corresponding restriction will not be enforceable against a transferee who is unaware of the restriction!
This brings us to the major reason why stock certificates should be provided: So that, with the proper statements included, shareholder buy-sell, voting rights, and other agreements can be enforced as the parties intended.
This blog does not provide legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. If you need legal advice, please contact an attorney directly.
The evening of Wednesday, March 10, the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs will present “Demystifying VCs: How to Make the Right Impression” at the beautiful Crow Canyon Country Club. Tasty buffet dinner included!
This blog does not provide legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. If you need legal advice, please contact an attorney directly.
California’s budget crisis is affecting how quickly entrepreneurs can form their business entities: Standard turnaround time for hand-delivered Articles of Incorporation now is close to four weeks. (The situation for limited liability companies [LLCs] is better at two weeks, though still much longer than it was just half a year ago – see LLC Formation in Record Time.)
According to the filing service that I use in Sacramento, this is the worst turnaround time they have ever experienced and is attributable to the Secretary of State not filling empty staff positions because of the State’s budget problems.
Fortunately, if quick turnaround is important, 24-hour expedited filing is available for an additional fee of $350.
This blog does not provide legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. If you need legal advice, please contact an attorney directly.
Two recently-acquired clients had similar situations that brought up the importance of complying with legal requirements.
Each company is a multi-founder startup where one founder became non-productive, and even somewhat detrimental to the business. The other founders wanted to move the problem founder off to the side, where he could cause no more trouble, in a manner that would be fair to everyone involved.
Unfortunately, each company had failed to comply with some of the most basic legal requirements: Holding annual shareholder meetings to elect directors, annual board of director meetings to appoint officers, etc. As a result, in each instance we had to spend time and money taking corporate actions, and recording those actions appropriately in meeting minutes, before the real problem could be solved.
So here is my view of how important legal compliance is:
- Without question, top priorities include making sales, delivering products / services, and taking in revenue.
- When it comes to administrative tasks, however, legal should be closer to the top of the list than the bottom. If legal affairs are not in order, problems can become greatly magnified.
Photo credit: stock.xchng
This blog does not provide legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. If you need legal advice, please contact an attorney directly.
