Capital Raise Series with Founders Legal Session 2: Pre-Seed Raises

This session will focus on the early stages of capital raising, specifically pre-seed raises. We will explore various instruments commonly used in pre-seed funding rounds, including:

• Convertible Notes: An in-depth examination of the advantages, drawbacks, and key terms associated with convertible notes.
• Simple Agreement for Future Equity (SAFE): Understanding the mechanics of SAFEs and how they can be utilized in pre-seed financing.
• Term Sheets: An overview of the key provisions typically included in term sheets and their impact on future funding rounds (e.g. Most Favored Nation, Preemptive Rights).

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About the Presenter: 

David Pierce is a corporate attorney with an unyielding passion for client success. He specializes in helping high-growth SaaS companies navigate business lifecycle challenges from building out foundational governance, facilitating commercial transactions, raising capital, and consummating exits.

David approaches technology transactions with insights that are unique in the legal world. Before joining Founders Legal, David worked in the communication technology arena for nearly a decade as a sales consultant. It is in this capacity where David first gained industry experience in IT Security and Data Privacy, and where David first encountered the bureaucratic pitfalls that can cause deals to fall out. A problem-solver by nature, and a skilled negotiator, David leverages his years of technology contract experience to enable clients to achieve their sales objectives. In this vein, David helps growing companies refine their sales documentation to reduce friction and speed up sales cycles, and to build out partner programs to leverage referrals, sponsorships, resales, and technology relationships.

In addition to the various intellectual property licensing strategies David implements for his software clients, he assists a wide range of product-based businesses to build trademark portfolios. David obtained experience in managing and monetizing intellectual property at AT&T and Aptean. As a former president of Georgia State University Intellectual Property Law Society, and former executive board member of the Georgia Intellectual Property Alliance, David has been long entrenched in the knowledge economy and continues to serve the Atlanta IP community through client enablement.

David’s interest in property extends beyond intellectual property and into real property, and David works with real estate investment groups to form real estate funds and manage properties.

While David’s practice extends all borders, much of it is rooted in the thriving Atlanta startup scene. To participate in, and give back to this community, David regularly lectures at various startup incubators and accelerators, including two of Atlanta’s most prominent diversity and inclusion accelerators: Atlanta Tech Village’s It Takes a Village and Georgia Statue University’s Main Street Entrepreneurs Seed Fund.

David’s pro bono work includes work for University for Parents, a division of Atlanta Cares, domestic violence outreach, and autism education.

In his free time, David enjoys time in the great outdoors with his wife, Emily, and his sons, Brody and Ryder.

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