Natasha Lloyd

Gone are the days of a simple handshake symbolising an agreement. As our laws and markets have become more complex so too have our documents. Understanding what your documents mean is a crucial part of being in control of your company. And for investors - understanding what your rights and

What are preference shares? In most ways, preference shares are identical to ordinary shares. Holding 50 preference shares gives you no more percentage ownership in a company than holding 50 ordinary shares and entitles you with the same ability to vote on matters put to shareholders. The main difference between

With the market for venture capital tightening up over the last few months, an increasing number of companies can expect to have to raise on a down round. A down round, broadly speaking, is where the valuation of the company, or the price per share, is lower than the previous

Fintech companies are growing at an incredibly fast rate. Not only are there more fintech companies in general, but existing fintech companies are increasing their services to offer more payment options, more financing software and greater marketing support. Despite this, the fintech sector remains the wild west of government regulation,

Signing documents (and waiting for documents to be signed) can be a frustrating and often error-laden process. Australia's outdated requirement of wet-ink signatures on paper makes it even more difficult. Earlier in 2021, the Treasury Laws Amendment (2021 Measures No. 1) Bill was drafted to reinstate what we had during

It should come as no surprise to anyone active in the Australian technology industry that we are behind the curve in terms of investment norms. Just one example of this the expectation of “pre-emptive rights” as an standard right for all investors. In short, a pre-emptive right is the right

While every business is different, many of the startups that we work with have a few things in common: 1. There are two (or more) founders; 2. They have taken some initial investment from family and friends; 3. They are building out a product, and intend to seek formal venture

We would like to introduce our first open source legal document, a Privacy Policy, which is intended to help technology businesses who operate in Australia to comply with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). It has been released under the permissive MIT Licence. We hope that by launching this document under

Briefing on the New Australian Employee Share Schemes From July 1, 2015 the Australian Taxation Office brought in new rules for Employee Share Schemes (ESS). The reforms have brought Australia in line with other developed nations, and are especially great news for start-ups who want to reward or incentivise talented

We were recently asked to take a look at Y Combinator’s Simple Agreement for Future Equity ("SAFE") for Sparrow Flights, one of our clients and a great new startup based in Sydney. The SAFE is a fantastic instrument released by Y Combinator to, as much as possible, replace convertible