National Security and Investment (NSI) Act: What investors, startups and businesses need to know
On 4 January 2022, the National Security and Investment (NSI) Act comes into force in the UK. In this article, we look a...
You’re a VC or fund.
You’d like to either invest in a start-up, and the founder says they love SeedLegals and want to use us for their round, or you’ve heard great things about SeedLegals and want to know how you can use SeedLegals for your investments.
We’ll answer these and other frequently asked questions here.
What is SeedLegals?
SeedLegals is a platform where founders and investors come to close a funding round. You and the founder agree what terms you want, select them on the platform and SeedLegals builds all the commercial and legal docs instantly. Our platform and customer support team (if needed) can walk all parties through the process, every step of the way.
Quick SeedLegals stats:
- Launched in April 2017.
- In April 2019 closed £3m Series A with Index Ventures as lead (on SeedLegals of course).
- Based in Holborn, 85 people, growing fast.
- SeedLegals is now the largest closer of funding rounds in the UK (we do around 3 rounds a day).
- We also help companies do their SEIS/EIS, in fact around 1 in 6 of all SEIS/EIS applications in the UK are now via SeedLegals.
- 15,000+ UK companies and 5,000+ investors use SeedLegals.
- Launched in France, Ireland and beyond – say hello to borderless legals.
Do you act for the investor or the start-up?
We always represent the start-up in a round – we do that so the startup doesn’t need to spend money on lawyers (SeedLegals is their one-stop solution).
Separately, if you’re planning to use SeedLegals for your rounds, we’ll work with you up front to set you up with a free account, get your team comfortable with our deal documentation, ensure the platform can accommodate any specific terms you have, and even build any special provisions you have (nominees, parties, information reporting, warranties, whatever) into SeedLegals to make it a 1-click option for you or the startup to include in all the deal docs (no more wasting another week educating lawyers on your specific wording).
Does SeedLegals have actual lawyers?
We’re not a law firm, but we have an extremely experienced legal team to work with the startup for everything they need from their side, and on-hand to assist on any customer wording, deal points, or complex matters as and when needed.
Does SeedLegals have professional indemnity insurance?
Yes, our PII will cover any claim up to £2 million.
Do you just do ‘seed’ deals?
No. Although naturally more seed deals take place in the UK than later stage rounds, we have done many £1m+ and Series A rounds.
Our documents are based on BVCA standard, and have been comprehensively reviewed by literally thousands of lawyers and investors. Our documents must be the most reviewed of any!
Which jurisdictions do you support for funding rounds?
We currently support UK, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland and France.
How can I use SeedLegals as an investor?
If you’re keen to cut time and money spent on drafting and reviewing legal documents for your investees and you, SeedLegals is the place to do your deal.
Once you have agreed terms with your new investee, simply ask your investee to use SeedLegals for the round, introduce them to a member of the team to get them set up on SeedLegals and create the term sheet for your deal.
In the coming months, we’ll be enabling investors to create their customisable term sheet, save their default terms for future deals, visualise where terms differ between parties (bye bye redline changes) and give them a team-sharing dashboard to manage and monitor all their deals.
What does SeedLegals cost me for the round?
Our business model is that we act for the startup, they pay our costs.
For the investor it’s totally free.
