Get investor discussions onto clearer legal footing

It is commonly used by founders, startups and growth businesses that are beginning investor discussions and want the main commercial points recorded properly. That may include first-time founders raising seed capital, companies negotiating with angel investors, or businesses preparing for a larger round and wanting a cleaner starting document. The service is useful where the parties have discussed valuation, investment amount, board rights or exclusivity at a high level, but need those points expressed more clearly before moving to longer-form investment documents.

The tricky parts are often not the headline investment amount, but the detail sitting underneath it. Common issues include how valuation is expressed, whether the term sheet is intended to be binding in part, investor consent rights, board composition, exclusivity periods, confidentiality, and what happens if the raise structure changes. If those points are vague, the parties can think they have a deal when they are actually working from different assumptions. A well-structured term sheet helps surface those issues earlier, before time and cost increase in the full document stage.

Yes, although the work may involve review and adaptation rather than starting from a blank page. Investor-issued term sheets can be useful, but they often reflect the investor's preferred position on control, information rights, exclusivity or future funding mechanics. We can help you understand the practical effect of those terms and revise the document where needed so the next round of discussions is more focused. If the matter turns into active negotiation or broader transaction support, that would usually be scoped as additional work beyond this page.

The term sheet usually acts as the roadmap for the longer-form investment documents. Depending on the structure of the raise, that may mean moving to subscription documents, shareholder updates, investor rights documents, board approvals or other transaction paperwork. Not every term in the term sheet will carry across in exactly the same way, but it should give the parties a clearer starting position. If you want help with the next stage, we can discuss separate support for the investment documents rather than treating this page as covering the whole raise from start to finish.

The service includes a lawyer consultation, drafting the fundraising term sheet, and legal input on the main commercial terms being proposed. We can also explain how certain clauses may affect the next phase of the raise, such as whether investor rights or board arrangements are likely to need fuller treatment later. This is broader than a bare document job, but it is still tied to the term sheet stage. It does not automatically include tax advice, investor negotiations on your behalf, or ongoing representation across the entire capital raise.

Just submit an enquiry via this page or click the 'get started' button on our website to submit an enquiry. After you've submitted an enquiry, one of our legal consultants will review your enquiry within 1 business day and get in touch to get a better idea of exactly what you are looking for.

Then your legal consultant will send through an email with a bit more information about the services you need, along with a fixed fee quote setting out costs, scope of the service and timing. Have a read through it, and if you're happy with the scope, you can accept and sign our engagement letter online - easy!

Once you've formally accepted, we'll connect you with a specialist lawyer and they will work with you to complete your project. They will contact you by email or phone if they need to get in touch.

Sprintlaw works on fixed-fee pricing wherever possible, so you can review the scope and cost before you decide whether to proceed. For the Fundraising Term Sheet service, pricing starts from $900.00.

After you enquire, a legal consultant will confirm what is included, the expected timing and whether any extra work is needed before you engage us.

We operate completely online, which means we can help you wherever you are in New Zealand. We have office spaces in Sydney, and in Melbourne, but our use of technology allows our team members to work remotely from around the world. Our legal team are mostly based in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. We also have a London office for Sprintlaw UK.

Our legal team is made up of experienced lawyers, who are specialists in various areas of law and hold an Australian legal practising certificate. None of our Sprintlaw lawyers are New Zealand qualified lawyers and they do not currently hold a New Zealand practising certificate.

They provide legal services working remotely from Australia via our 'legal consultancy' model, through which (under section 6 and section 35 of the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006) our Australian legal team are permitted to provide legal services to New Zealand businesses provided they do not provide services in certain 'reserved' areas of law. You can read our FAQ page to learn a bit more about our 'legal consultancy' model.

Given the strong similarities between Australian and New Zealand law, and the areas of law in which we practice (being small business and startup law), we do not view the fact that our lawyers have not qualified in New Zealand as having any substantive impact on the quality of our service. We are committed to ensuring that we provide high quality, affordable legal services to all our New Zealand clients.

Our legal team have all trained at leading firms, but have left the traditional corporate law world to join us on our mission to create a new and better way of delivering legal services. They have specialist expertise in technology law, intellectual property law, contract drafting and review, corporate law and commercial law.