Newsletter Start-up / Venture Capital, March 2020

Dear Reader,

Yet again, the first two months of the year have just flown by. We are particularly happy to announce that we are now cooperating with both The Growth Stage and Werk1 in Munich.

The Growth Stage entered the market in autumn 2018 as the world’s first financing platform for private growth companies. We have been working together with The Growth Stage as exclusive legal adviser since 31 January 2020 and assist companies when accessing institutional investors via this platform. (You can find the press release here.)

One of the reasons why the start-up Öko System in Munich has developed so well is the digital start-up center Werk1. In addition to two co-working spaces, Werk1 hosts an incubator, which focuses on digital start-ups of all industries, and the accelerator InsurTech Hub Munich in the fields of InsurTech and HealthTech. We decided to support Werk1 as a partner not only financially, but with our legal expertise, too. Our Werk1 Team is made up of experts for corporate law, labour law, IP/IT law and data protection law and it sponsors and supports Werk1 start-ups with workshops and regular office hours. Werk1 start-ups can also contact us at any time for advice and support.

You can find the following articles in this newsletter, together with our usual calendar of events:

• Dr Gesine von der Groeben from our Frankfort Office reports on the special features of M&A for start-ups.
• Our Hamburg colleague, Jan Christian Eggers addresses the question of when competition authorities will have a say in the sale of a start-up.
• Our experts for director liability, Drs Daniel Walden and Florian Weichselgärtner have analysed the liability risks for the directors of start-ups and the possibility of taking out D&O insurance as security against such risks. They also spoke to insurance expert Marcus Helmich from hendricks GmbH about this issue.
• Tassilo Klesen and Dr Eva Kreibohm look at the issue of “beneficial owner” and the new obligation on notaries to perform anti-money laundering checks – we should all have these checks on our radars in order to avoid unnecessary delays in notarisation.
• Jan Mohrmann from our Frankfort Office and Christian Philipp Kalusa from our Munich Office inform about their last experience with the design of an employee participation plan and the tax relevant points in time of valuation and receipt thereof.
• Our Munich labour law experts, Drs Erik Schmid and Michaela Felisiak clear up numerous misunderstandings about the question of “trial periods”.
• Finally, Frank Mayer from Barmer Insurance provides some answers on the right health insurance for founders.

Happy reading!

We keep you up to date.

Your BEITEN BURKHARDT Start-up / Venture Capital Team