StartupTools was founded to help entrepreneurs focus on running their businesses, instead of spending time and money on unnecessary legal paperwork and negotiations. We have fantastic lawyers in every country who contribute by adapting the legal content to local law.
As an independent organisation, we see many term sheets. Quite often, they are written with primarily the interests of either the investors or the founders in mind. This is not the best starting point for a successful relationship! Why not start negotiations based on a fair and balanced term sheet instead? We’re convinced that this approach long-term will benefit both the company, all shareholders and the ecosystem in large.
In addition to the investment documents (term sheet, subscription agreement and shareholders’ agreements), we have also created a founders’ agreement (which is an SHA but without investors), employment agreements, NDAs, a guide and template for unit economics analysis and some more local stuff for certain countries, e.g. stock options, local versions of Y Combinator’s Safe documents, etc.
It’s all free – this is our way of giving back to the startup community.
License
All resources on this site is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
Permitted Exceptions
In addition to the permitted non-commercial uses in the license, we also allow:
- As a lawyer you are of course free to charge clients for making individual adaptions of the documents (as long as you comply with the rest of the license, e.g. attribution). We support this type of use.
- For clarity: It is allowed, and encouraged, to use these documents for the founding or development of companies with commercial interests and ambitions (just don’t forget the attribution).
Before using the resources for any other commercial purpose (including removing the reference to StartupTools), you need my prior written permission.
Heroes
Many people have helped me making this initiative a reality. You are too many to mention. There are however a few people who have put some extra effort into this:
First and foremost, huge thanks to our first legal partner Mattias Larsson for making this possible. If you have any legal questions about the documents, or need help with other legal topics, don’t hesitate to contact him. He’s based in Sweden but has a global network of lawyers.
I also very much appreciate the invaluable support from Magnus Sandberg and Johan Crona for all the input on the original Swedish legal documents.
Owner
StartupTools is brought to you by:
StartupTools Europe AB
Org nr: 559303-6436
VAT: SE559303643601
Contact us
If you want to get in touch with us, feel free to reach out:
Hannes Rosén, Co-Founder & CEO
Phone: +46 70 591 2408
Email: hannes@startuptools.org