TECHdotMN: News about Minnesota Startups

Series Seed Financing Documents

April 21, 2010 | by Zach Robins Comments

Last month, Silicon Valley attorney Ted Wang and a group of collaborators published the “Series Seed Financing Documents.”  This set of free legal documents is intended for early stage companies raising up to $1.5MM in seed capital.  The goal of this effort is to decrease the time and dollars spent in creating transaction documents, as well as to level the playing field between companies and investors.

By many accounts this is the fourth set of free, open-source seed stage documents (entire list).  Supporting Wang is prominent venture capital firm Andreeson Horowitz (started by the founder of Netscape), and a slew of venerable investors such as Ron Conway and First Round Capital.

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Seed Funding: Friends And Family

February 7, 2010 | by Zach Robins Comments

The seed stage, or initial funding round for a startup business, is critical to getting a company off of the ground. Often raised from founders, friends or family, this round lays the foundation which allows an idea to blossom into a product or service.Yet, founders often struggle with structuring the seed round. Questions naturally arise, such as:

* What is the valuation (worth) of my company?
* Should the investment be structured as equity or debt?
* How much of the company should I sell to investors?

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