Technology law firm Simmonds Stewart has launched a suite of fixed price offers for New Zealand startups.
The legal work covered by the offers includes drafting investment term sheets, preparing convertible note agreements, creating employee share option scheme documents, and completing investment documentation for a startup’s first equity financing transaction.
The firm’s pricing page sets out the details of each offer. The fixed price of $10,000 plus GST for drafting, negotiating and completing investment documentation for first equity financing transactions, up to and including Series A, is expected to be particularly attractive to startups.
CEO Victoria Stewart says:
There’s not a lot of information in the market for NZ startup founders on what they should pay for their legal costs. Since we know that startups are cash constrained, we want to give clarity on what they can expect. With this new model, we’re moving away from the six-minute billable unit to fixed pricing that founders can budget for and rely on.
We’ve closed over 50 capital raising deals in the first six months of 2019, and 93 in 2018. This level of activity gave us the data we needed to launch these fixed prices with a high degree of confidence.
The firm initially trialled fixed prices in Southeast Asia via the firm’s Singapore office. Stewart says:
Startups and investors in Southeast Asia have been incredibly receptive to our fixed price trial. If that experience is anything to go by, we expect these offers to be in demand in the New Zealand startup scene.
