Q1 2019 in VC: Bigger (But Fewer) Rounds

What a year 2018 was in the VC/start-up world. Coming into 2019 we all wondered whether the record pace could be sustained. Well, let the wondering end. An awesome report was just put out by Pitchbook and the NVCA on Q1 investment round data which unearthed some really interesting trends, particularly in the early stage space, namely:

·         Overall: fewer, larger venture transactions with deal numbers continuing to shrink even as investment levels maintained their 2018 pace.

·         Angel, seed & first financings: while overall deal count is down broadly, the earliest stage has seen the greatest decline with annual count falling 44% between 2015 and 2018, the take away being that as start-ups face steeper expectations for maturity from investors so capital is being concentrated in fewer but more developed start-ups.

·         Early stage VC: remains strong but has receded from decade peak in Q2 of 2018. The median size of early stage VC financings grew 36% YoY to $8.2m.

·         Sectors:  As huge flows of capital pour into the core software and SaaS companies, many VCs are looking to emerging sectors that are less congested with investments. Some areas to watch include cybersecurity, robotics, the applications of AI & ML, next-generation infrastructure, fintech, healthtech and traditional industries ripe for disruption.  

Some other great data in here around later stage deals, geographic regions, incubators, female founders, corporate VCs, etc.

Buckle-up should be a wild rest of the year!

The Importance of MFNs in an Extended Bridge Phase World

Convertible note and SAFE financings remain the most commonly used instruments to bridge a start-up to its first preferred stock equity raise. Given the changing landscape around Series Seed and Series A rounds, in particular, a well-documented rising of the bar from VCs on “equity round ready” companies, more than ever before, start-ups are relying on these type of investment vehicles as a lifeline to raise capital for an increasingly extended period of time. The challenge for a start-up is how to rely on these vehicles, often accompanied with discounts and valuation capped rates of conversion, without giving up a disproportionate amount of equity at the ultimate conversion but, at the same time, continue to entice new investment from angels and early stage funds through the bridge phase. Some of those non-economic levers utilized by a company might include, to name a few, pro rata preemptive rights, guaranteed “major investor” status in the equity round, pre-equity round information rights, etc.

Accordingly, from an early investor’s perspective, there has developed an increased risk that your note will look a whole lot less favorable than the notes issued by the same company in connection with subsequent note financing rounds. To protect against that risk, I also encourage my investor clients to require inclusion of a Most Favored Nation, or MFN, provision in their note at the time of investing. If written thoughtfully, the MFN has the effect of giving investors the right to amend the terms of their existing notes to incorporate those additional rights and/or benefits (not just economic), which the company may introduce in the context of subsequent raises.   

But a word of caution for you investors relying on a MFN, particularly the off-the-shelf MFN found in the form YC SAFE, if written poorly or without customization, there is a strong chance the insurance that accompanies the MFN right may be worthless. So watch out!

5 founder mistakes that keep your lawyer up at night

1. Giving away board seats to convertible note holder investors

Finding the right partner to invest in your business out of the gate is paramount to the success of a start-up (particularly) through its infancy stage. If your initial investors are conditioning their participation in your “friends and family” bridge round on receipt of a board seat, that should serve as a red flag. Your venture’s earliest investors, if experienced, should understand the fact that the founding team requires a maximum amount of flexibility at the board level as the company is coming out of inception and through its bridge financing. Adding an outside investor influence is more appropriate at the time of the company’s initial equity financing. Disrupting that equilibrium beforehand can cause problems for founders (too many cooks in the kitchen) and most importantly, may slow the company’s ability to achieve desired growth (forcing founders to chase after partially committed investors). And don’t buy the “but we want to help more than just giving you capital” argument. If that’s the case, set up a quarterly scheduled call or coffee meeting.

2. Issuing founders convertible note

Common Stock should be held by founders/management/employees and preferred stock should be held by investors. Any disruption of that fact inevitably introduces complexity as it relates to establishing an appropriate and unbiased governance structure of a company. For founders who have dedicated significant $ resources before outside capital becomes available, there is a temptation to “honor” that debt and roll it into the first convertible note round. The terms of that convertible note round, however, will undoubtedly have a conversion mechanism whereby investment in the convertible note ultimately converts into the preferred stock sold to investors in the initial equity round. Suggestion: instead of piggybacking the founder’s loan through that convertible note instrument, founders should consider documenting their loan instead as a straight promissory note (without a conversion feature) that would get repaid at some future trigger date.   

3. Not getting assignment of IP agreements from contributors out of the gate

This is one I see too often. At the time of engaging lawyers to legally form an entity that will house a product that you and your 2 other co-founders have been dedicating time to over the last 3 months, you get asked by your attorney to have everyone who has contributed to the IP of the company in the prior 3 months to execute an assignment of IP agreement. The problem: there was a 4th individual who was a part of the early conception stage but disappeared on you last week because they disagreed with the direction of the product build. Now they won’t answer your emails. The takeaway: if you are leaning on the contributions of individuals other than yourself out of the gate, immediately forming the legal entity and putting all the IP created in the company is paramount to not finding yourself in this situation.    

4. Spending too much time coming up with special vesting arrangements for co-founders

You are not only an incredibly intelligent individual but you are brave enough to put everything on the line to pursue an idea you feel passionate about. That fact is what gets me up in the morning to work and why I love my job so much. BUT, nothing is more frustrating that seeing you divert your efforts and intelligence away from building your company to instead coming up with novel vesting schedule schemes for you and your co-founders. 9 out of 10 times it will end up being a waste of the company’s money and time. Stick to what you do really well. Building companies. Not unique vesting schedules.

5. Not filing 83(b)s

And… I saved the best for last. You go through the incorporation process with your lawyers. You form your entity, you finalize equity documents and then you are off to the races building your company. You are feeling really good until you find out that your lawyer (and most likely their paralegal or junior associate) becomes complacent and fails to file or remind you to file your 83(b) election for the un-vested equity you received at incorporation. This is the ultimate mistake you and your lawyer can make out of the gate. If a founder does not make an 83(b) election, in any taxable year in which equity vests, the founder will be required to include in his/her gross income as ordinary income the delta between the fair market value of the equity at the time such equity vests and the price he/she paid for the equity.  As a result, income that likely would have been taxable at capital gain rates upon sale if the founder had made an 83(b) election would be taxable at ordinary income rates upon vesting. Yikes. 

The Convertible Noteholder Standoff

For founders, raising that first equity round is a true milestone. It is not only an opportunity to bring in meaningful dollars from professional investors to fuel a start-up’s growth but, if you have had outstanding notes running interest since the early days coming out of inception, it also serves as a chance to clean up your company’s cap table by converting outstanding convertible instruments in connection with the round. With angel investors’ broad adoption and comfort of investing into early stage companies through convertible instruments, companies are delaying the need to sell preferred stock in an equity round, in some cases, for the first couple years of a company’s development. The fallout from this reality, however, is that when you do head toward closing that first equity financing, a founder will have the task of coordinating with the (sometimes, many) noteholders in connection with the conversion of those noteholders’ outstanding notes.

With a syndicated noteholder base, the risks of holdout (or unreachable) noteholders is elevated and without collection of all signatures from that constituency in connection with the equity round, the new money investors in the financing will inevitably be spooked. To combat the potential negative effects and risks of a “standoff” down the road at the time of the equity financing, initially when preparing and issuing your convertible notes, your counsel should be advising you on the appropriate language to include in the instrument to ensure there is zero room for interpretation in the event the noteholder does not provide its signature at the time of a triggering financing and resulting automatic conversion. Without an air tight documented mechanism, you will otherwise risk taking the “automatic” out of automatic conversion and open up potential delay in the closing of you ever-so-important equity financing.  

Amending Convertible Notes in connection with a Qualified Financing: A Word of Caution.

For some time convertible notes have been, and remain to this day, the preferred vehicle for an early stage company raising initial capital. A known commodity in the marketplace, the barriers and expenses of closing note bridge rounds continue to be less than opting for the sale of an equity security. What early stage investors might not be aware of, however, is a trend gaining steam of late – as company valuations increase in earlier investment rounds, a growing number of sophisticated lead investors in “Qualified Financings” (ie the company’s equity financing that triggers conversion of the notes) are applying increasing pressure to condition their investment in the round on the company amending the terms of their outstanding convertible notes to carve back a portion of the economic windfall received by noteholders in the Qualified Financing.

Setting the stage: The terms of a vast majority of convertible promissory notes in the marketplace provide that a note investor’s principal (plus interest) under a convertible note will, at a Qualified Financing, convert into the security sold in the Qualified Financing (ie Series Seed or Series A preferred stock) at the lower of (i) a discount to the price in the Qualified Financing or (ii) a pre-negotiated capped valuation.

The economic problem: Particularly in early friends and family note rounds, the pre-negotiated capped valuations are often times significantly lower than the valuation in the Qualified Financing. If the terms of the note are honored as-is, note investors would get the benefit of receiving not only the actual dollars (plus interest) invested under the note in the form of the same shares issued in the Qualified Financing, but also the (in most cases, material) discount premium as a result of the discount or capped price. This became known as the “phantom liquidation preference problem” – referencing the layered liquidation preference received on the lot of shares which had been converted into as a direct result of the cap piece of the conversion. 

The Lead investor’s fix: Condition the closing of the Qualified Financing on the company obtaining the requisite approval from their noteholders to amend the notes to either (i) convert the discount portion of shares received in the round into common stock, as opposed to preferred stock or (ii) convert into a shadow series of preferred with the same rights as the preferred stock sold to new money investors in the Qualified Financing with the exception that the liquidation preference on the shadow security is carved back to the conversion price at which the notes converted in the round.

The note investor’s dilemma: Either (A) don’t approve the amendment and the company you are invested in doesn’t receive the capital to continue operations or (B) approve the amendment and lose out at the deal originally bargained for which credited the note holder for making a risky investment in the first place.

The Conclusion for early stage investors: The lead investors in a Qualified Financing wields significant power in setting the terms for the new money round, which includes potentially forcing early note investors to adopt alterations to their initial note conversion deal. As an early stage note investor, however, there are precision drafting protections your lawyer can help institute at the time of the original investment which have the effect of returning at least some of the power back in the hands of a company’s earliest investors at the time of conversion. In any event, don’t be naïve: the suppressed valuation cap you successfully negotiate for in your note investment documents, if left naked, may end up taking on a much different economic outcome than you originally bargained for.

Wire Fraud on the Rise… Could the VC Community Be Hit Next?

It has been widely reported that cyber criminals are hijacking real estate transactions by finding increasingly sophisticated ways to intercept and make alterations to wiring instructions being distributed between parties leading up to a real estate closing, resulting in the wiring party being duped into releasing funds to an alternative (and often times, off shore) bank account. Over the last year, hackers are starting to apply the same techniques to prey on the venture capital community and financings transactions. Read here. 

This got me thinking about the standard practice for how venture financings are closed, specifically the process around how wiring instructions are shared between a company and its soon-to-be investors as well as the particular ripeness of the industry to be targeted by similar scams.  

It is customary that leading up to the final moments before a VC transaction closing, lawyers find themselves caught in the middle of coordinating distribution of final deal documents along with the company’s wiring instructions. Here’s how it typically unfolds: (1) a company will email its lawyers the company's wiring instructions to distribute along with executed documents and the filed charter, (2) the company's lawyers turn around and send a closing email, which contains those instructions, to the Investor’s lawyers, (3) Investor’s lawyers then forward along to their client with confirmation that the closing conditions have been met and the wire should be released. By my count that is 3 emails sent containing wiring instructions…. which is 3 emails too many!

It is time for lawyers to insist that the parties to a transaction take much more calculated steps to limit the risks associated with this particular style of cyber crime. Founders and VCs should communicate directly on wiring instructions, separate from the lawyers' deal document distribution, through secured means other than email and, prior to wiring any funds, the VC (or a member of their finance team) should contact the company by phone and confirm that the wiring information sent over email is accurate. In my experience, this isn’t common practice. But it should be.

SAFES...the Death of the Convertible Note?

If you are a founder of an emerging company looking to raise money in a bridge round, you should hope the answer to that question is “yes”  for a few key reasons I will get into shortly. First a quick anecdote. I was meeting with a founder of a high profile tech start-up last week (not a current client) in Boston and he informed me that he was in the middle of raising a friends and family bridge round. My first question – what was the vehicle for the investment? When he told me a traditional convertible promissory note I asked him whether he had considered utilizing (or been advised by his counsel to utilize) the SAFE alternative.  I was shocked that his answer was a flat no. In fact he had never even heard of a SAFE. For those in the same position, start by reading this. Although over 3 years have passed since their creation out of YCombinator, SAFEs remain under used in east coast bridge financings. Here is why founders should want that trend to change:

No Maturity

Arguably the biggest headache for start-ups in a bridge financing is getting the maturity date wrong. If you do it can become a founder’s worst enemy, a logistical nightmare that turns a fairly inexpensive financing, into a more expensive one, as counsel is needed to draft documentation to extend maturity and founders end up needing to chase signatures from the requisite majority, all simply to extend a maturity date on an instrument that no investor ever expected to be paid back cash under. Not to mention all the question a founder starts receiving when they circulate that paper work to their investors. Oy. Safes do away with maturity all together and in doing so place an emphasis on the economic terms investors truly cared about when they decided to invest – namely mechanics for conversion and payment upon an earlier sale of the company.

No Interest

URGENT PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT. To all those founders of start-ups raising a bridge round to its first equity financing, if your investors are making a stink in negotiations about the interest rate % or form of interest calculation (simple vs compounding) in the round, walk away. This is something that drives me crazy when I represent my early stage clients and something I always tell investors to drop first in a negotiation if they truly want to win the deal. You are investing in a start-up. The bet is that the investment will convert, not that you will make a bank like return on a loan. SAFEs do away with this conversation all together. Thank the lord.

No Phantom Liquidation Preference

Historically, when an investor’s principal plus interest under a convertible note converted at a discount or capped rate in connection with the triggering equity financing, that investor would get the benefit of receiving not only the actual dollars invested under the note in the form of the same shares issued in the next round, but also the (in most cases, material) discount premium. As a result, the bridge round investors were receiving what became known as “phantom liquidation preference” specifically tied to the lot of shares which had been received as a direct result of the discount/cap piece of the conversion. So why should founders care? Liquidation preference, in the most simple terms, is the amount of cash you would need to sell the company for before the common stock holders (founders and employees) saw a dollar in their pocket. Increasing the size of the liquidation preference, only distances the common from cashing in at a sale. Good news SAFES correct this problem by providing for conversion of the amount under the safe plus the discount premium into a shadow security with the same rights as the preferred security sold in the equity round but with a per share liquidation price equal to the lowered rate at which the safe investment converted.