Ventures and Innovations

As an early-stage business, you want to ensure you are setting up your business on the best foundations to be able to achieve your objectives. From founder agreements and intellectual property protection to structuring the company to be investor ready, expert advice early in the business journey can make sure you are in the best position to grow. 

Our highly experienced team at Thorntons can work with you from the very start, acting as part of your team, to find the optimum route to achieving your goals and the right structure for the company.

The right company set-up

Working to understand your business and its potential, we can advise you on founder arrangements and structuring, including explaining any contractual terms, sharing equity across the founders and putting in place provisions to protect your equity share as you move forward with investment. We can guide you through the legal arrangements you need to put into place when the company is incorporated, including negotiating and drawing up shareholder agreements, articles of association and service agreements as required.

Becoming investor ready

Acting as part of your team, we work with you to make sure you are investor ready, building your investment proposition and supporting you through the seed investment round, including introducing you to our investor network. We regularly work with, and can connect you to, several syndicates and individuals who repeatedly invest in high-growth companies.

Making the most of your IP

At this early stage, it is incredibly important to consider any intellectual property you are developing, in order to understand how you are likely to commercialise it as your business develops and what protection is needed.  Our team include IP and trademark experts to help you make the most of your IP assets, whether you are starting up and need to protect your brand or spinning out of an institution and need to negotiate a complex licence agreement.

To achieve your high-growth aims, finding the right investment and funding is key. Alongside this, as your business grows, you also need to ensure you are continuing to meet your legal and company obligations, keeping your employees incentivised and protecting your intellection property. Our Ventures & Innovations experts are on hand to help, with support through successive investment rounds, advice on employee share schemes, licensing and assignations of intellectual property, and ongoing legal guidance. 

Funding rounds support

Our team can work with you to ensure your business is investor-ready for successive funding rounds, through seed, and series A, B and C. For example, we have worked with many clients from their creation as small start-ups, through successive successful investment rounds, to the those legal issues which are relevant to fast paced scaling companies.

Share Option Schemes

Employee incentive schemes, such as Enterprise Management Incentives (EMIs) or Share Option Plans can incentivise teams, whether you are looking to grow or reach targets. With such schemes, employees and selected executives may be eligible for tax-advantages on company shares. We can advise you on your options for employee incentive schemes, including employee eligibility, and put the scheme into place for you, handling all documentation. 

Legal advice to hand

We can work as part of your team, giving you legal support throughout your day-to-day operations and development. For instance, as the business grows taking on staff, you will need to be aware of your responsibilities as an employer. As Thorntons is a full-service firm, our employment law and immigration law specialists are on hand to help. 

With business success comes the need to plan ahead for an exit strategy. Our Ventures & Innovations team can advise on potential exit strategies and options, from selling off the venture entirely to mergers, acquisitions, restructures and joint venture arrangements. We can effectively manage and coordinate the sale process for you, handling all the legal arrangements, while liaising closely with you, your accountants and your investors. 

Mergers and acquisitions

We can assist clients through the whole process, whether a disposal or acquisition, including, negotiating the terms, assisting with due diligence, and dealing with all legal requirements related to the transaction. 

Joint ventures 

Working with you, we can ensure you enter into any joint operation with the correct joint venture agreement in place, including maintaining equity value, and protecting your confidential information and intellectual property rights. 

At Thorntons, we act for a number of investors, including syndicates, venture capitalists, and individuals, on a range of opportunities and work to bring together the right fit of investors and high-growth ventures for successful growth. We have significant experience in both investor-led deals and high growth business advice and can provide you with both transaction and portfolio management support. 

Transaction support

We bring our expertise to agreeing commercial terms, drafting investment documents and running efficient deal closes, leveraging technology to deliver on time and budget, meaning we are able to support any scale of deal flow.

Portfolio management support

We support investors in protecting their interests in investee companies; from corporate governance issues and board structuring to follow on investments and exist strategies. 

Bringing investors and ventures together 

At Thorntons, we actively work with clients to build their profile within the ecosystem and create a support network to drive startups in the UK and across the globe.  

Our partnerships within the ecosystem enable to provide on the ground support and advice to Scottish scaling companies, developing opportunities for them across the globe.