How many times as a startup founder have you struggled with legal documents for incorporation or fundraising? Most of the times, unless you are very familiar with the ecosystem, one has to take recourse to lawyers/law firms to procure them at a price. The entire cost of all the documents put together easily comes up to INR 1 Lakh – INR 1.5 lakhs from a small to mid-sized law firm.
It is to reduce this information gap in the ecosystem and make paperwork more efficient that online deal-making platform LetsVenture (LV) has decided to open-source all legal documents necessary for incorporation and fundraising for startups and investors. The goal is to make documentation transparent and easily accessible to founders and investors.
Shanti Mohan
, co-founder of LetsVenture explained the rationale behind this move. She said, “At LetsVenture we are meeting founders every week looking to start ventures, looking for feedback on the best service providers and looking to connect to mentors and investors. What I have noticed is the lack of standardised documents available and good guidance on what founders should ensure is documented when they start up. Google the web and you can find a lot of information from Silicon Valley but limited in the context of India.
I also strongly believe that for a healthy ecosystem, access to such information (incorporation docs, funding docs) should be easy, free, and open to all. You should not have to pay for such documents especially when entrepreneurship is at the focal point in how we are looking at enabling the Indian economy. I have had challenges as a founder myself and want to ensure that at LV we truly play the role of a trusted partner for easy access to information which addresses basic hygiene factors in a start up.”
The platform has already begun the process and sent out mails to founders and investors on LetsVenture. Drafted by the legal team at LetsVenture, the documents are a standardised script which can be adjusted by startups according to their product and in consonance with their investors and legal team.
LetsVenture founded in 2013 by Shanti Mohan and Sanjay Jha, has facilitated funding for 92 startups, aggregating to nearly $37.5 Mn. Ratan Tata and TV Mohandas Pai backed LetsVenture presently has over 7,500+ connections and over 2,000+ investors on its platform.
Startups and investors can click here to access the documents.
