I made an excited jump into early stage investing on Friday the 13th last December. The 22 year old me devising randomized algorithms in Bharti Building’s labs at IIT Delhi had no idea that his 25 year old version would be sitting in startup pitches 5 days a...
Sometime in 2017, we had the opportunity to speak with Deepak Anchala, co-founder and CEO of Slintel. Deepak was building a SaaS company in the sales intelligence space. It was early days for him. We shot some breeze and exchanged ideas on where within the sales...
Founders of a well run startup invariably have multiple balls up in the air. One of the key aspects founders need to deal with is their Board. For some founders, Board members add little value and for some, they can be extremely useful. This blog is an attempt to...
In 2015, I was running my first startup. It was a laundry services business. We were the new age Dhobis – as my parents would call it – where customers could book the service on an app, choose their preferred pickup & delivery time-slots, and pay...
Building a large, sustainable company is hard, and the odds are always against the entrepreneur. Often we believe that if we find a meaningful problem to be solved within a large market (hopefully with some tailwinds), achieve product market fit (PMF) and go-to-market...
I lived through two major downturns. The first one led to personal bankruptcy, and I narrowly survived the second one. In 2001, I worked for a boutique strategy firm in the Bay Area focused on growth strategies for hi-tech companies. Despite being one of the best...
The Company and the Founders shall complete an initial public offering or a ‘strategic sale’ within 5 years from the Closing Date (“Exit Date”) on terms that are acceptable to the Investor. The failure of Company and Founders to provide an exit by the Exit Date shall not relieve the Company / Founders of their obligations to provide an exit to the Investor, which shall continue until the Investor ceases to hold any shares. In case of failure to provide exit, the Investor shall inter-alia have a drag along right on all other shareholders of the Company.
Liquidation Preference
Higher of 1x or pro rata entitlement on an as-if converted basis in any liquidity event. Liquidity event shall be defined in the definitive documents and will inter alia include change in control or sale of substantially all of the assets of the Company.
Pre-Emptive Rights
The Investor shall, in any subsequent offering of securities by the Company, have a right to maintain their shareholding in the Company. [Note to Draft: Any super pro rata rights will be over and above this and should be included here]
Valuation
The valuation section concerns what an investor believes the company is worth. valuation issues addressed in the term sheet will include: pre-money valuation, post-money valuation, capitalization table and price per share.