Newsletter Start-up / Venture Capital, October 2018

Dear Reader,

An exciting year is nearing its end. For the Start-up / Venture Capital division at BEITEN BURKHARDT, it is already clear that a review of 2018 will reveal record numbers of investment rounds. We thank you for your trust and appreciate your loyalty!

We have been very interested to see the rapid developments in corporate venturing. Many medium-sized companies now view their own venture arm or start-up promotion programme as a standard tool in their modern corporate strategy, particularly in connection with digitalisation. It therefore comes as no surprise that our corporate venturing events, such as those we held in Frankfurt and Munich, have been particularly well received. We will definitely take this into account when designing our 2019 Workshop Programme; we will keep you posted.

A positive development in the local market is the advance of standardised VC investment documentation in Germany: the German Standards Setting Institute was established in the middle of this year by the Business Angels Netzwerk Deutschland e.V. (Association of Business Angels and their Networks in Germany) and the Bundesverband Deutsche Startups e.V. (German Startups Association) and aims to compile a set of standardised contractual documents for start-up financing in Germany. Work commenced with the standard documents for a convertible loan; a term sheet and other documents will follow. Such standardised documents have long been part of daily VC life in the USA, venture capital country No. 1, and are a necessary step to bring start-ups and investors together in an uncomplicated way, especially in the first financing rounds. At European level, there have also been discussions at expert conferences and moves to compare the clauses used in investment rounds in various countries and, where possible, to align them. We will use this forum to keep you up-to-date with these developments.

We are pleased to be able to present the following articles in this edition of our Newsletter:

• Dr Gesine von der Groeben looks at a hot topic for many start-ups, founded in the legal form of Ltd.: the necessary return to continental Europe before Brexit
• Christian Hess, reports on blockchains, in particular, on how innovations in the area of blockchains should and can be protected
• Christian Döpke and Dr Mathias Zimmer-Goertz explain the responsibilities of the administrator of a Facebook fan page under data protection law
• Dr Axel von Walter and Paul Wilde provide an update on the developments in data protection under the GDPR since May 2018
• Tassilo Klesen summarises the common issue of what should be covered by the shareholders‘ agreement in an investment round and what is better anchored in the articles of association of a start-up
• Moritz Bocks deals with the topic of investment valuation, which is often underestimated by corporates
• In keeping with the season, Dr Michaela Felisiak and Dr Erik Schmid conclude by looking at the problem of employees who choose to work, despite having a doctor’s certificate.

Happy reading!

Best regards

The BEITEN BURKHARDT Start-up / Venture Capital Team