→ Stage 5 / 6
From term sheet to closing—and financing R&D.
Financing a startup means constantly arbitrating between speed, dilution and cost. Those who come out best are not those who raise the most—they are those who structured early and activated the right tools in the right order.
A fundraising is a demanding exercise for founders, and the term sheet concentrates most of what is at stake. People believe it is purely indicative; it rarely is as much as it seems. This is the stage at which the main parameters of the deal are negotiated—valuation, governance, investor rights, exit mechanisms—which will then be carried over into the shareholders' agreement and the bylaws: revisiting them at closing is sometimes difficult. Hence the importance of being advised from this stage to set, from the outset, the balance of the entire deal.
By the time the startup is worth something, the major tax optimizations are often closed off—because they require having acted while the value was still low or nil. The 150-0 B ter mechanism (contribution-and-sale) is the most emblematic example: by contributing their shares to a holding company before a sale, the founder can defer the taxation of their capital gain indefinitely, provided they reinvest in eligible SMEs. Missed for lack of anticipation, it becomes a 30% tax that could not have been avoided.
France has one of the most generous public-incentive ecosystems in Europe. The difficulty is not finding the incentives but combining them correctly, documenting them rigorously and activating them at the right time. If you work with subcontractors, choose an accredited provider and verify its research-tax-credit accreditation. Put in place internal time-tracking tools to justify the effective assignment of teams to eligible projects. Secure the Young Innovative Company status through an advance tax ruling: it can also secure the income-tax-SME reductions of your individual investors and avoid representations and warranties at the time of a raise or an M&A deal.
What if your customers also became your investors? Crowdequity can become a genuine lever to diversify your funding sources and turn your community into ambassador-shareholders.
Raise funds quickly through BSA AIR, without negotiating a valuation or diluting your capital prematurely.
From the term sheet to the registry filing, we structure your fundraisings while preserving your interests.
Structure preferred shares tailored to your investors and the dynamics of your cap table.
Attract advisers, service providers and strategic investors through bespoke share subscription warrants.
Lay the right foundations for negotiation with clear and protective pre-contractual documents.
A lawyer frames your matter at the first meeting, the firm's AI accelerates the drafting.
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