For some time Jason and I have felt that VC’s have had an unfair advantage when it comes to understanding term sheets. So a few years back we wrote a whole series of blog posts (the Term Sheet series) which became the basis for the book Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist. […]

On the heels of all the noise around Groupon’s $100m financing at a $7.5b (billion) post valuation, I thought I’d put out a call for “old VC term sheets – prior to 1990.” My partner Jason Mendelson and I are working on a book titled Venture Financings: How To Look Smarter Than Your Lawyer and […]

Over the years my partner Jason Mendelson and I have heard from numerous people that they’ve been exposed to our Venture Capital Term Sheet Series as reference material in a college course.  We are delighted by this and whenever we’ve been asked, we’ve always said (and will continue to always say) “with our blessing.”  However, […]

Suddenly the blogosphere is talking about the need for a standardized first round term sheet.  The latest iteration of this seems to have blossomed when TheFunded Founder Institute released a “Plain Preferred Term Sheet” (developed with WSGR).  According to the article in TechCrunch, the goal is to (a) protect founders and (b) reduce legal fees.  […]

In 2005, my partner Jason Mendelson and I wrote a long series of posts describing all of the parts of a typical venture capital Term Sheet.  We started on 1/3/05 with a post on Price and finished up on 8/23/05 with a post on Indemnification and Assignment.  Of all of the stuff I’ve written over […]

In 2005, Jason Mendelson (my partner and co-author of AsktheVC) wrote what has become an extremely popular series dissecting the “term sheet.”  The feedback we got from it encouraged us to write several more series of blogs and ultimately led to us deciding to start writing AsktheVC to answer random questions from entrepreneurs. Last Friday I […]

Rick Segal is in the middle of a negotiation and is having some frustration with his co-investor – a “US VC” – around settling on a few terms that he thinks are silly.  I agree with two of them but struggle with the third. Expenses: If the deal doesn’t close, the startup pays.  I agree […]

Every now and then I run into a new VC term in a term sheet that I’ve never seen before. My legs tremble with excitement as I stare at the words to dissect what they mean.  On Friday, a long time friend sent me the following new and exciting term. Compelled Sale Right: So long as […]