Legal support for startups

The things investors check before they wire

Diligence is not an exam about your product. It is an exam about whether the company owns what it says it owns and whether the people around the table have agreed in writing what they believe they agreed. Most rounds that slow down, slow down here.

Where early companies lose time

• The brand is in a founder name, or not registered at all, in a market where rights go to whoever files first.
• Nobody wrote down who owns the code. A commission presumes the rights are yours and employment presumes an equal split, but which rule applies is exactly what gets argued. A written assignment with a stated term settles it (articles 83, 84 and 33 of the Mexican Federal Copyright Law).
• The cap table is a spreadsheet. The corporate book says something else, or says nothing.
• No vesting. A co-founder who left in month four still holds a quarter of the company.
• Nothing signed between founders, because at the beginning it felt unnecessary and later it felt awkward.
• Domains and social accounts on someone personal email.

What it costs to fix later

Every one of these is cheap to do at the start and expensive to repair under time pressure with a term sheet on the table, because at that point the other side knows you need it resolved. Some cannot be fully repaired: a trademark someone else filed first is not a drafting problem.

What we do

• Incorporate with the intellectual property assigned to the company from day one.
• Founders agreement, vesting and share transfer restrictions.
• Trademark search and filing before the launch, not after.
• Assignment agreements for employees, contractors and agencies, including retroactively.
• A diligence pack prepared in advance, so the round is not spent assembling it.
• Review of the investment documents on your side of the table.

You deal directly with the attorney on the file, with replies in under 24 business hours, which matters when a round is moving.