Save time and effort when investing in start-ups, by simplifying the legal due diligence process and dramatically reducing the negotiation cycle.
As an investor considering a start-up investment, you know that both the legal and commercial due diligence is often a time-consuming and expensive process, leading to lengthy delays. One major challenge is the cycle of time it takes for the legal documentation to be produced, reviewed, amended and agreed by all parties. You also need to quickly understand the commercials and have all related documents securely stored in one place.
FounderCatalyst was borne out of a desire to help start-ups on their funding journey. Ultimately, FounderCatalyst simplifies and manages the entire funding process for both investors and founders, raising everyone's chances of success.
Founder defines round and invites investors.
Create account, and sign NDA, FCA investor disclaimer.
Review founder documents and negotiate.
Agree terms and sign electronically.
There is no charge for signing up and using the platform as an investor.
The most cost-efficient method of completing deal legals – more of your investment goes to the start-up rather than lawyers.
Changes can be made dynamically to documents on the platform, with updates in minutes, reducing your legal due diligence / negotiation cycle dramatically.
At the end of the funding round, all founders and investors receive a full completion bible containing all signed documents and the agreed disclosure information.
By being on the FounderCatalyst platform, start-ups are much more likely to be investment ready.
FounderCatalyst's advance assurance package is included within a founder’s legal funding round at no extra cost.
The platform will produce and automatically populate the following legal documents:
Initial Term Sheet
Founder Service Agreement
IP Assignment Letter
Subscription and Shareholders' Agreement
Articles of Association
Cap Table: one for before the investment, and one for after it
Final Term Sheet, summarising all key points agreed with confirmed investors
Resolutions for both shareholders and directors
Disclosure Letter (with the disclosure bundle also managed on the online platform)
Share Certificates.
Once a founder has defined a funding round on the platform, they have the option to invite potential investors to sign up to FounderCatalyst and securely review their documentation. Once you have registered and electronically signed an NDA and FCA disclaimer, you can view the start-up’s pitch and other supporting documentation, together with a term sheet and all the legal documents produced by the platform. These can be found in the company’s Intelligent Data Room. A useful summary index of all documents contained in the Intelligent Data Room is also provided.
You then review all the legal documents and decide which items to negotiate and which to accept. Any changes the founder makes to the funding round settings dynamically update the funding round documents in real time, for everyone. As an investor, you are automatically notified when a founder has made changes, with new versions being available to download immediately from the Intelligent Data Room.
When all of the investment documents have been agreed and everyone is happy to proceed, final versions are produced and stored in the Intelligent Data Room. Investors electronically sign via the platform and founders are notified once all documents are signed. Once the founder has marked the funds as being received, share certificates are issued from the platform.
At the end of the funding round, as an investor you also receive a full completion bible containing the definitive contents of the Intelligent Data Room.
Thank you to FounderCatalyst for making Investment easy and guiding us through all the legal steps required and answering all our queries so quickly. If you are a founder looking for SEIS and EIS approval, looking to understand where to find investors, or simply need support with the legal side of investment FounderCatalyst are the team to talk too.
We were referred to FounderCatalyst and told that they were good, but our advance assurance submission received a positive response from HMRC in 25 hours – that is better than good!
A big thank you to the FounderCatalyst team for all their help, particularly in light of literally moments before submitting for our SEIS advance assurance, HMRC totally changed the submission format and method. Their team didn’t miss a beat and sorted everything. We received our confirmation of advance assurance in less than a week. Delighted is an understatement!
The FounderCatalyst team were on hand every step of the way during the funding round. Unlimited support and entirely responsive. This really helped us closed the funding round swiftly.
Our EIS time limit had expired and were looking for funding outside the EIS scheme. FounderCatalyst were really interested in the challenge and it was clear from our early conversations that they knew the intricacies of the various options. They identified KIC as a potential alternative for us and provided clear instructions and hands-on support with our KIC advance assurance submission. We received advance assurance within two weeks of our submission. I have no hesitation in recommending them to others.
FounderCatalyst has created an impressively efficient and cost effective way of managing funding rounds.
I've got a background in law, so I'm comfortable with the mechanics of a funding round. The FounderCatalyst service is unique though - they give you personal support and use their experience to guide you through the key decisions - something only exited founders and angels investors can provide.
Founders seeking to raise equity finance - use this service! It is simple to use, reliable and secure, and provides unrivalled value for money. You're in complete control of your fundraising process and timescales.
I am a distiller of award-winning gins that are stocked in places like Harrods, but I know little about the funding paperwork and requirements. FC helped me to efficiently produce my funding paperwork in 2 days and I got SEIS advance assurance in less than two weeks.
We incorporated in 2000 and started trading almost immediately. We recently started looking to expand our business into new territories and needed an equity investment to facilitate that. Unfortunately, attracting angel investment in the UK is very hard without offering SEIS or EIS. We thought the ship had sailed until FounderCatalyst mentioned a little-known EIS provision known as Condition B. Long story short, the FounderCatalyst team successfully secured EIS advance assurance and we are now raising using that scheme.
FounderCatalyst has been absolutely superb in helping me navigate the SEIS/EIS advance assurance process. My business certainly was not vanilla in its application process, but they took the time to brainstorm the best way to conduct our application. The team always act in a very timely manner, with a knowledgeable understanding of the process. Certainly would recommend the FounderCatalyst to any start-up!
Prior to working with FounderCatalyst, we had conducted the legalities of our first funding round via accountants and lawyers and found a real disconnect between the two. We reached out to FounderCatalyst for round 2 and couldn’t be happier with the service. They are on hand to personally deal with any requests or questions - there is a real accountability of the full process and depth of knowledge that you’re able to leverage. We would not go elsewhere for another round.
The FounderCatalyst team turned my advance assurance application around in just 2 working days and we had a positive response back from HMRC within a week. Their assistance with preparing my Investors Deck and forecast model was invaluable. We highly recommend using FounderCatalyst to other founders!
Our experience using FounderCatalyst was quick and easy. FounderCatalyst have turned the onerous task of raising funds into an easy process for not only ourselves, but our investors too. I would recommend FC to anyone raising their seed round.
I am doing a funding round using another legal paperwork provider but hit an issue with our SEIS/EIS advance assurance being queried. I wasn’t entirely confident in the proposed response to HMRC and someone recommended I speak to the FC team. They helped me to improve my response and their support led to a positive response. Amazingly helpful and knowledgeable team, even for someone who wasn’t a customer. I've recommended them to colleagues already and will be switching to FC for our next round!
I had no idea about SEIS/EIS and the team clearly explained the process and took the hassle away by managing it end to end. They turned our deck and financial plan into an SEIS/EIS submission in less than a day and managed to get HMRC approval within two days enabling me to focus on my fundraise.
FounderCatalyst could not have been more helpful and supportive throughout our SEIS process.They worked diligently to help us get advance assurance much faster than we thought was possible. They went above and beyond the basic advance assurance process, and played a crucial role in helping us to secure funding. I can not recommend FounderCatalyst enough.
FounderCatalyst have been excellent in supporting us with our first round of fundraising. The specialist knowledge of the team is exceptional, and the customer service is second to none. It has made what can normally be a painful process, simple. I would highly recommend to any fellow founders.
It was a pleasure working with FounderCatalyst. As of the first meeting, Sam was very involved in the whole process and made it very easy for us to get us investor ready faster than we could have ever imagined. We can only recommend the service and are about to use his services soon again.
FounderCatalyst has proved an outstanding solution for our fundraising efforts. Being new to the entrepreneur world and indeed that of raising investment, the FounderCatalyst platform takes all the headaches (and cost) out of the legal and admin side of the raise, so I could focus on communicating with our investors. The support received from the team was second to none and the instant build paperwork and cap table forecasting made the whole process incredibly organised and clear. While I may not be a fundraising novice anymore, I wouldn't hesitate to use FounderCatalyst again when the time comes for a future investment round.
FounderCatalyst was an excellent choice, we were delighted with the platform throughout our funding round. From term sheet, legals, due diligence to data room, the process was faultless, keeping deal momentum and presenting a professional interface to our investors.
This is the first time we have raised investment for Trove. It can be daunting to keep on top of all of the requirements and documentation. We are so happy to have the support of FounderCatalyst - their technology is user friendly for both founders and investors. Moreover the team are so responsive in supporting any questions. It is clear they understand founder needs having been successful entrepreneurs themselves. We would highly recommend FounderCatalyst and look forward to working together on future funding rounds.
We met FounderCatalyst through the Startup 2 Standup Community, and were immediately impressed with their proactive approach to supporting founders. Their guidance from the very start with the advance assurance submission to closing our initial tranche has been truly invaluable, combined with the auto-documentation and flexibility the platform gives you at every stage in the round, makes FC the best choice for pre-seed startups.
The best investment we made was using FounderCatalyst for the legal work. It's really good value, the platform was easy to use and we had amazing support throughout from their CEO, Sam Simpson. I would absolutely recommend it to all founders!
FounderCatalyst were first class from start to finish. The help provided in navigating the minefield of SEIS/EIS advance assurance and fundraising legal documentation has been invaluable. They never tired of answered my questions enabling a smooth process for us founders and our investors in as far afield as Australia. I cannot recommend them highly enough.
Founders always need external, expert support, and never more so than in the area of handling HMRC and SEIS/EIS. This is where the big learning curves come from, and you don’t want to get this wrong - it follows you for a long time. The team at FounderCatalyst are wonderfully human, knowledgable, accessible, experienced and focus on helping the Founder - the human.
All I can say is ‘WOW!’, the FounderCatalyst team provided copious assistance to prepare my SEIS and EIS advance assurance submission. HMRC replied the very next day with our advance assurance
The whole experience from entering details and completing EIS advance assurance forms to signing the final legal documents was so simple and intuitive.
FounderCatalyst was recommended to us by a trusted friend to help with our SEIS/EIS advance assurance before we opened our first investment round - and this was done at speed driven by the expertise of their team. The platform and team provided all the core information, legal documents and support needed to work with investors and the digital platform for investors to engage - and as a new startup this has been essential and has removed a lot of stress and worry in an area of the business new to us. Throughout the fundraising, FounderCatalyst has been there with endless support. I would fully recommend the FounderCatalyst service as a core part of your fundraising plans and process.
FounderCatalyst's services and support has been instrumental in guiding us through the intricacies of SEIS/EIS advance assurance and our legal paperwork, including clarifying the legal jargon. This has significantly contributed to our early stage growth.
FounderCatalyst is simply brilliant. Not only is the platform powerful & user-friendly; the team have a huge amount of real-world experience and go the extra mile to make your round a success. You'd be mad not to use it!
I sent FounderCatalyst my pitch deck and forecast model. They gave me feedback and then prepared a pack to submit to HMRC for EIS advance assurance. I was amazed that HMRC responded with confirmation of advance assurance before 9:15 the next working day!
I had little knowledge of the legal processes of raising investment. Our CCO recommended FounderCatalyst and we have both been very glad we chose this route. The FounderCatalyst team led us through the system personally and the online portal, including electronic document signing, was fantastic.
