The 2Q06 Fenwick & West Venture Capital Survey summarizing venture capital terms in Silicon Valley is out, which seems like a good time to mention their other publications. Unashamedly US and West Coast centric there are some good documents in there for everybody.
My favourite section is Start-Ups & VC. For an example of the depth of coverage, look at the Legal Issues for Entrepreneurs - Formation and Founders Issues which covers such sections as
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Guide to Forming a Start-up Company - fair enough and covers company types, jurisdictions and so on.
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Guide to Forming a Subsidiary in India - so this is, like, the second thing a new company would want to do? I’m making fun here, but seriously: if you are looking at setting up a producing company (e.g. consumer goods) you would want this part to be pretty high on your list. Welcome to the New World.
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Stock Option Grants in India - gotta keep ‘em workers working….
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Legal Structures for Outsourcing - if you are not in India, then your outsourcing partners should be.
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Key Service Agreement Checklist - from the service provider’s point of view.
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2006 Update to Structuring VC and Other Investments in India - as above.
This is completely different from the vapid British guides that basically says you should have some non-execs on the borad and watch your cash flow. There is much more of the same. Go grab it. This sort of infrastructure is why Silicon Valley will always have a innovation edge over the UK (or anywhere else). Way to go Fenwick & West! Way to go America.
(If you came here looking for easy-to-use UK-centric legal document templates, try Tom's Law. A little too simple sometimes, but worth a starting point. And Tom is the guy behind FiSMA, so we like him.)