Ever since David Cohen started TechStars, I’ve encouraged him to “open source” everything. We regularly get approached by people all over the world to talk about the program. We do – we tell them everything about what we do, how we do it, and why we do it. We share our documents with them. We try to help and support them.
We regularly get asked for the documents we use for doing early stage financings. I personally believe these documents should be able to be done on a single piece of paper and sealed with a handshake (or more preferably, a fist bump), but I’m generally alone in that view. So, we’ve worked closely with Cooley Godward Kronish, LLP (and specifically Mike Platt, who has been my go to lawyer and a close friend since I moved to Boulder in 1995) to put together a set of “Model Seed Funding Documents” that anyone can use.
There are five primary documents in the set:
Of course, these are just example documents so all legal disclaimers about usage apply (e.g. “do with them what you want, but we take no responsibility for your actions.”) That said, I think these are a great starting point for anyone doing an early stage financing.
I’ve always enjoyed Greg Galant’s interviews on Venture Voice. He interviewed me early on (Show #10) and the list of folks he has interviewed is dynamite.
Greg just interviewed David Cohen on TechStars. The show notes give you a great outline of the interview content where David answers a lot of questions about TechStars, why it exists, how it works, and why you should care.
Don’t forget – TechStars applications are now open.
Applications for the 2009 TechStars program are now open. If you apply before March 1st, you’ll be eligible to receive an invitation to TechStars For A Day on March 3rd. The applications deadline is March 21, 2009 at 11:59:59 PM MDT.
For an example of one of the TechStars 2008 companies, take a look at the recent article in the NY Times titled An Online Farmers Market. It’s a great profile of Foodzie – one of last year’s companies which was founded by Rob LeFave, Emily Olson, and Nik Bauman. Foodzie recently raised $1m from First Round Capital and SoftTech VC, have launched a dynamite site, and are off to the races.
Hint: Foodzie applied early, came to TechStars For A Day, got into the program, and knocked the cover off the ball.
Apply now. ‘Nuff said.