Everything You Wanted to Know About Term Sheets with David S. Rose, Founder & Chairman of Gust

Tuesday, July 18, 2023 @ 3:00PM - 4:00PM Eastern

When investors—no matter how “angelic” they may be—finance a new startup, they do so because they expect to make a significant profit. Their investment is thus a carefully structured business transaction governed by precise rules described in up to 120 pages of documentation for a typical venture transaction. But if everyone had to work through all that documentation to come to a basic understanding of a deal…no investments would ever be made.

For that reason, investors and founders first come to a mutual understanding around a term sheet, a much shorter “agreement to agree” that lays out the major aspects of the investment: how much cash the company will get, what the investor will get in return, and what obligations and protections each party has. But ‘shorter’ is a relative term, and even a term sheet itself can run up to 15 pages!

In this special masterclass, David S. Rose, Gust’s Founder and the author of the best-selling guidebooks for both founders and investors, will walk through a term sheet from top to bottom, pointing out which parts favor founders and which investors, which parts are critical and which parts are boilerplate, and where the room for negotiation can be found. He will cover three different types of term sheets: for a SAFE, for a Convertible Note, and for a fully priced equity round using standard NVCA documents.

No prior knowledge is required, and all participants will receive copies of the three standard term sheets that they can use in their next financing round.

This event is the start of our Scale series of the Gust Founder Curriculum where we’re talking about how to maintain your company's rapid growth. We’re bringing in our most trusted industry experts to join us, and sharing our favorite resources to help you on your way. (P.s. Did you miss our previous founder series? Make sure to check out Prepare, Launch and Grow! Stay tuned for more great programming coming soon!