Although entrepreneurs and venture investors typically drive the negotiation of the term sheet for a venture financing, once the term sheet is executed, the commercial parties (especially those who have not been through the process many times) often feel sidelined in the ensuing process to close and uncomfortable with their lack of visibility into and control over the timeline. Accordingly, I thought it would be helpful to provide a high-level overview of a standard venture financing timeline.
Continue Reading How Long Should it Take to Close my Venture Financing?

As a Valentine’s Day gift to the community, Silicon Valley Bank issued its eighth annual Startup Outlook Report, resulting from a survey of nearly 950 technology and healthcare executives in startups, most based in the US, with additional input from businesses with primary operations in the UK and China. SVB’s survey asked entrepreneurs for their views on access to capital, hiring, general business conditions, public policy issues and other factors relevant to their businesses.  Nearly all of the survey respondents were privately held companies, with the majority in the
Continue Reading SVB’s Annual Startup Outlook Report

PitchBook just released its analysis of Q3 2015 venture capital activity by region, focusing on three key U.S. regions: the Bay Area; New York; and the Pacific Northwest. Below are the PitchBook infographics and a quick summary of the results:

Bay Area:

  • The median pre-money valuation for Q3 2015 was $61.8m.
  • The reported deals with the highest valuations were: Uber Series F pre-money at $51B; Stem Centrx Series G pre-money at $4.8B; Palantir Technologies pre-money at $4.9B; and Stripe pre-money at $4.9B.

3Q_2015_Bay_Recap-2New York metro:

  • The median pre-money valuation


Continue Reading Recap of Q3 2015 Venture Capital Activity by Region

From our colleagues Kelly Friedman, Tamara Hunter and Jim Halpert

This fall, more than a year after Canada’s anti-spam legislation (CASL) came into force, it is abundantly clear that the regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, is taking its new responsibilities very seriously.

In the latest developments, the CRTC recently issued an Enforcement Advisory and further Guidance on Implied Consent.

The CRTC’s message is loud and clear – it will impose penalties, regardless of good intentions.

Find out more about CASL and the key messages for business in
Continue Reading Canadian Anti-Spam Regulatory Activity

Earlier today PitchBook released its M&A Report for Q3 2015 and the stats indicate continued strength in merger and acquisition activity.

While the overall deal count for Q2 2015 was down (4,250 deals with an aggregate value of $416 billion) as compared to the prior quarter (4,803 deals with an aggregate of $560 billion) and prior year (5,183 deal with an aggregate of $373 billion), the average transaction size spiked to $1.103 billion in Q2 2015 as compared to $795.3 million in Q1 2015 and $231.9 million in Q2 2014.
Continue Reading Merger activity remains strong in Q3 2015; average deal size spikes

PitchBook just released its analysis of Q2 2015 venture capital activity by region, focusing on the six of the most active U.S. regions: the Bay Area; Boston; Los Angeles; the Midwest; New York; and the Pacific Northwest.  Below is also a quick summary of the Q2 2015 highlights by region:

Bay Area:

  • The median pre-money valuation for Q2 2015 was $63.5m (up from $29m for Q4 2014).
  • The most active sector (by both deal count and capital invested), by a wide margin, was


Continue Reading Recap of Q2 2015 Venture Capital Activity by Region

From our colleagues Lucas V. Muñoz, Margaret Keane, Ben Gipson and Daniel Lac

Beginning July 1, 2015, employers in the State of California are required to provide employees with paid sick leave (PSL) under the California Healthy Workplace Healthy Family Act of 2014. In short, every employee who works at least 30 days in a year is entitled to accrue PSL at a rate of at least one hour of PSL per 30 hours worked, up to 24 hours per year.

Simple enough? Not really. As employers implement
Continue Reading IMPLEMENTING CALIFORNIA’S PAID SICK LEAVE LAW: 10 ACTION ITEMS

We have previously blogged about the SEC’s July 2013 rule change that disqualifies certain “bad actors” from using Rule 506. Thankfully, Rule 506 permits the SEC to determine, upon a showing of good cause, that it is not necessary under the circumstances to deny availability of Rule 506. The SEC has recently issued a policy statement explaining how it will evaluate whether a party seeking a waiver has shown good cause that it is not necessary under the circumstances that the exemptions be denied.

Background

Other securities offering exemptions, including Rule 505 and Regulation A, have had bad actor disqualifications for many years, and the SEC has also had the authority to grant waivers under these exemptions using a similar “good cause” standard. In fact, based on this interesting article from Urska Velikonja, the SEC granted waivers nearly 200 times between July 2003 and December 2014. However, because Rule 506 is so much more widely used in mainstream private securities offerings, significant attention to waivers of bad actor disqualifications emerged as the first waivers were granted under Rule 506 (such as those granted to Oppenheimer and H.D. Vest). The attention to the issue culminated in several SEC commissioners publicly expressing diverging views about the proper use of waivers, including in speeches by SEC Commissioners Daniel Gallagher, Kara Stein and Michael Piwowar and SEC Chair Mary Jo White. This ultimately led to the SEC issuing its recent policy statement to bring consistency to how such waivers are granted, whether under Regulation A, Rule 505 or Rule 506.
Continue Reading Factors the SEC Considers in “Bad Actor” Waivers

A useful note from our colleague Sanjay Beri, originally posted at Technology’s Legal Edge.

I was recently reminded that the term “reseller” agreement can often mean different things to different people.  Misunderstandings about these types of relationships creates the potential for miscommunication and wasted time drafting the wrong terms.

A client recently asked me for a form of reseller agreement to engage resellers to help distribute the client’s software based product.  “You know, just grab something off the shelf that will work” went the common refrain.  As I talked
Continue Reading What Exactly Do You Mean By “Reseller” Agreement?

Just a reminder to those who have Delaware corporations, your annual report and franchise tax payment are both due by March 1 (which falls on a Sunday this year so plan accordingly). At this point, you have likely already received from Delaware your notification of annual report and franchise tax due, which is sent to a corporation’s registered agent in December or January of each year. Delaware requires these reports to be filed electronically.

As you will notice, there are two methods that you can use to calculate the amount of Delaware franchise tax due for your corporation (i.e., the “Authorized Shares Method” and the “Assumed Par Value Capital Method”), which result in vastly different amounts due. The default payment amount listed on your notification is set by Delaware using the Authorized Shares Method, which method will almost always result in a much high amount due for startups with limited assets. The minimum franchise tax is $175 (increased from $75 on July 1, 2014) and the maximum franchise tax is $180,000.

Franchise taxes are generally due in arrears for the prior calendar year. However, note that Delaware requires corporations owing $5,000 or more for the prior year to make estimated payments for the current (going-forward) year’s franchise tax with 40% due June 1, 20% due by September 1, 20% due by December 1, and the remainder due March 1.

Here are some examples showing how the different methods can dramatically impact the amount of Delaware franchise tax due:
Continue Reading Franchise tax due by March 1 (a Sunday!) for Delaware corporations: two methods of calculation, two vastly different results