Our team of start-up experts provide legal expertise to a range of different companies across multiple sectors
Bringing your innovative idea to life and turning it into a commercially viable product or service can be an exciting yet challenging journey.
Getting funds, whether in the form of ‘friends and family', seed capital funds or grants; finding the right business and commercial partners, and having contracts in place that allow your business to develop whilst protecting your interests are some of the steps you may need to take when starting your business.
Our team of lawyers can help you identify key areas to focus on in order to build strong foundations for your start-up
We help advise start-ups in four key areas ...
Funding your business
When preparing your company for investment, it’s important that the terms of such investment are fully understood by all and documented appropriately.
Advising on S/EIS investment, including application process
Advising on seed rounds, including advising on investor offer, due diligence, manager engagement terms and investment terms
Supporting secure investment rounds
Management and ownership structure
How you structure your company and its ownership is a crucial step in future-proofing your assets.
Advising on incorporation, management and ownership structure
Drafting shareholder agreements to manage relationships and expectations of founders and subsequent investors
Advising on share capital structure and share rights
Assisting with company formation, including preparing registration forms and company constitution documents
Company secretarial services to ensure accurate and timely filing of company records
Management and staff governance
Protecting your business
Ensuring you have the right processes and agreements in place to protect your brand, products and services can have a big impact on the future valuation of your business.
Identifying and protecting intellectual property (IP), including registering IP, drafting NDAs and development agreements
Licensing IP from a third party to develop your product or service
Supporting with clearance searches and freedom to operate
Partnerships and commercial relationships
Appropriately structured, worded and locked in place agreements allow your business to develop whilst protecting your interests.
Preparing terms and conditions for the supply of goods and/or services, both online and if applicable offline, for businesses and/or consumers
Supporting in negotiations to secure key contracts with significant trading parties
Putting in place contracts for the engagement of third party contractors or suppliers
Working With
We supported Q Doctor, a platform that helps healthcare providers with video consultations, with securing a £1.5 million investment round.
This was led by the global social innovation fund Nesta Impact Investments (NII) and supported by angel investors and retail investors. We advised our client on the investor offer, due diligence, employee options, manager engagement terms and investment terms.
The new funding will help accelerate Q Doctor's plans for growth.
Our thoughts
All the latest views and insights on start-ups and fast-growth companies
