Capital Raise Series with Founders Legal Session 3: Seed and Series A

In the final session, we will focus on the nuances of Seed-Preferred and Series A funding rounds. Key topics will include:

• Preferred Stock Characteristics: A comprehensive look at the rights, preferences, and protections associated with preferred stock issuance.
• National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) Mechanics: Exploring the NVCA model legal documents and how they shape investor-founder dynamics.
• Continued Investor Relations: Strategies for effectively managing investor relationships and maintaining transparency as your startup grows.

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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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Jeff Bekiares is a senior attorney with over fifteen years of experience in general corporate, capital raising and securities laws practice. He began his career at a great large Atlanta law firm, practicing there for over six years before leaving large firm life to become the Co-founder, COO and General Counsel of SparkMarket, a Georgia based crowdfunding platform that was first-of-its-kind in equity crowdfunding in the United States. He is a founding Partner of Founders Legal and has been the Chair of our Corporate Department since 2014.

He has worked with clients at a variety of stages: from start-ups, to emerging growth to exchange listed public companies. He specializes in organizational structuring, corporate governance, operating and shareholders agreement, multi-use and bespoke complex commercial contract drafting, mergers & acquisitions, private capital raising and all manner of transactional matters, including asset purchase, sale and leasing transactions.

The majority of his Clients operate in the technology space, but he regularly assists companies in a variety of different industries, arts and verticals—which includes representations of companies, individual angel investors or angel investor groups, accelerator programs and venture capital concerns. He also regularly represents commercial real estate development and investment groups in their capital raising efforts.

Jeff has worked closely with regulators and experts in the state and national crowdfunding community to design capital raising campaigns (primarily “intrastate” Invest Georgia Exemption campaigns) that are compliant and safe for issuers and investors.

Jeff practices law with a philosophy based on the practical and affordable, for companies of all sizes. He is also a prolific writer, speaker and thought leader in his areas of practice and interest, and regularly lectures and provides content to and in connection with capital raising conferences, co-working space meetups, incubators and accelerators, institutions of higher learning, and government agencies. He is also the practice leader in our Corporate Education & Training group.

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