Venture Capital & Startups

Besides venture capitalists, business angels and financial investors, numerous large and medium-sized companies seek to be close to start-ups in order to use their know-how and innovative solutions to develop their business models further. At the same time, many founders and young companies strive for partnerships with investors in order to finance growth as well as gain industry knowledge and management expertise. Selecting and configuring the individually-suited co-operation model is decisive for success here. Our team has many years of experience advising venture capital investors and companies as well as start-ups and is familiar with both sides’ needs.

The members of the team are involved in the venture-capital scene in a multitude of ways and thus have an excellent network. Since 1996, the law firm and further partners have hosted the monthly VC round table with speakers on current topics. This has become established as a fixed point of reference in the VC scene in the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan area. Moreover, the law firm is a member of Business Angels Netzwerk Deutschland (BAND) e.V. and of Private Equity-Forum NRW e.V.; some partners work in the expert forum there.

We can assist you in these areas:

• advice on participation models as well as configuration of participation contracts and shareholder agreements
• advice regarding financing structure
• IP-law advice (protection of know-how, inventions and business secrets)
• IT-law advice (software contracts, data protection and security, IT projects)
• configuration of contracts (co-operations, R&D, suppliers, customers, employees)
• tax-law advice
• exit assistance