Press Releases

Menlo Park, CA – Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe’s Emerging Companies Group announced today that it has launched an online Start-Up Tool Kit, a comprehensive set of resources designed to aid start-ups and their founders on the journey from the “garage” to the global marketplace.  The Start-Up Tool Kit includes documents to memorialize agreements with co-founders or potential investors, a library to assist founders with the terms and terminology of key legal documents and a network of individuals and events where they can learn business strategy and the latest industry news.

“Orrick’s Start-Up Tool Kit levels the playing field for entrepreneurs,” said Lowell Ness, a partner in Orrick’s Silicon Valley office.  “We have seen a spike in the number of start-up companies, and we believe the Tool Kit will be an important resource to help entrepreneurs make the right decisions early in their companies’ life cycle and position them for success.  Entrepreneurs now have an efficient, cost-effective resource that can help them from their companies’ conception through interim financing and ultimately to a preferred stock offering.”

The Start-Up Tool Kit includes three main components:

The Term Sheet Creator

The Term Sheet Creator leverages Orrick’s deep experience in the marketplace to offer entrepreneurs a founders term sheet, bridge financing term sheet and a preferred stock financing term sheet based on their responses to a series of interactive questions.  The question annotations provide insightful tips and tricks as well as an overview of the key issues to consider.

The founders term sheet is a new document created by Orrick lawyers that provides entrepreneurs with something more concrete to memorialize the “deal” among founders before formally incorporating and spending the time and money on definitive incorporation and start-up documents.

Each of the term sheets generates an Answer File that can be saved locally and shared with Orrick attorneys for upload into Orrick’s even more robust internal document automation tool making the process of generating definitive agreements for the various transactions incredibly efficient.

The Start-Up Forms Library

The Start-Up Forms Library is a reference source for the key legal documents entrepreneurs need to start and grow their companies.  This includes corporate formation documents, founders stock purchase documents, employment and technology-related documents and equity compensation documents. 

Orrick’s TOTAL ACCESS Event Series

Orrick’s TOTAL ACCESS Event Series provides entrepreneurs business, tactical and legal education through complimentary breakfast panels and lunch seminars. Presented by experienced industry CEOs, venture capitalists and Orrick lawyers, TOTAL ACCESS offers insights on cutting-edge issues and an opportunity to network with leading professionals in Silicon Valley.

The Start-Up Tool Kit can be found online at: http://www.orrick.com/practices/corporate/emergingCompanies/startup/index.asp

About Orrick's Emerging Company Practice

Orrick's Emerging Companies Group is a leading advisor to start-ups, with more than 700 emerging company clients in the United States, Europe and Asia. The group includes lawyers in nine offices around the globe and has more than 100 lawyers in its Silicon Valley office.

About Orrick
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP is a global law firm with more than 1,100 lawyers in North America, Europe and Asia. The firm focuses on litigation, complex and novel finance and innovative corporate transactions. Orrick clients include Fortune 100 companies, major industrial and financial corporations, commercial and investment banks, high-growth companies, governmental entities, start-ups and individuals. The firm's 22 offices are located in Beijing, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Milan, Moscow, New York, Orange County, Paris, Portland, Rome, Sacramento, San Francisco, Seattle, Shanghai, Silicon Valley, Taipei, Tokyo and Washington, D.C.

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