What Every Startup Needs to Know

On Wednesday, June 26th, Perkins Coie’s Palo Alto office hosted the startupPerColator event, “What Every Startup Needs to Know.” Lowell Ness, a Perkins Coie partner in the Emerging Companies & Venture Capital (ECVC) practice, moderated a panel which included Herb Stephens of NueHealth, Thomas Huot of VantagePoint Capital, Jennifer Jones of Jennifer Jones and Partners, Yuri Rabinovich of Start-up Monthly, and Olga Rodstein of Shutterfly.

Use a Term Sheet Before You Incorporate

Lawyers will tell you it’s important to incorporate your company as soon as you possibly can to avoid personal liability and to settle all outstanding matters among the founders. That’s good advice, but the place to start is with a Term Sheet for the incorporation.

When Should I Form a Legal Entity?

As startup lawyers, we often receive inquiries from passionate entrepreneurs and founders seeking guidance on when they should consider taking their side projects to the next step by forming a legal entity. Forming a company is a “crossing the Rubicon” moment for any startup. It’s an essential step […]

Hot Tax Deal: Qualified Small Business Stock

Startup founders and investors could miss out on huge tax savings if they fail to consider the potentially significant tax benefits of holding qualified small business stock (QSBS). Why it Matters Stockholders may potentially exclude from income all or a portion of any gain recognized on the […]

Founders’ Preferred Stock

What is founders’ preferred stock? Founders’ preferred stock (also called series FF preferred stock) addresses certain tax and accounting issues that can arise when founders decide to get early liquidity by selling shares of their stock to investors at the same price as other preferred stock sold […]

International Women’s Day Client Spotlight: Cherie Hoeger

Happy International Women’s Day! Today is a day to recognize the achievement of women in our lives, acknowledge that gender bias still exists, and take action to forge women’s equality. This year’s International Women’s Day theme is #BreakTheBias, so we reached out to a few of our […]

How Forming Your Startup as an LLC Could Maximize Qsbs Benefits

In the tech startup world, limited liability companies (LLCs) are fairly uncommon, for some very good reasons. However, in certain circumstances startups can utilize the LLC structure at formation to help maximize the potential qualified small business stock (QSBS) gain exclusion upon the sale of stock of […]

The Delaware Franchise Tax: Don’t Freak Out

Within the next few weeks, corporations incorporated under the law of Delaware will receive ominous notices from their registered agents or the Delaware Divisions of Corporations advising such corporations of their annual obligation pay the their Delaware Franchise Tax. Save for “83(b) elections,” “scalability” and “valuation”, no […]

Startup Operations – Identifying & Navigating Legal Risks

Many entrepreneurs have a good understanding of statutory limitations and regulatory constraints on the operations of the businesses they are starting.  That understanding often comes as a result of familiarity gained from years of experience operating in an industry.  Other entrepreneurs may be newer to an industry, […]

Maintain the Limited Liability Shield

Entrepreneurs should form a business entity as soon as they embark on a new startup venture.  A key feature of business entities (e.g., corporations or limited liability companies) is limited liability, meaning that the assets of the owner of the business available to satisfy claims against the […]