Start-up Scale-up programme

Most businesses are in the intellectual property business, whether they know it or not. This is often more true for innovative start-up and fledgling businesses. Some of this intangible value needs registration (such as patents or trade marks), and others may exist automatically but still need careful protection and exploitation (such as copyright). It takes advice and investment for a business to grow and exploit this kind of property. However, these valuable assets are often neglected by many businesses, sometimes until it is too late. Our legal experts can set you off on the right foot and help you maximise the potential of your creative assets at an early stage, whether it’s through branding advice, building your trade mark portfolio, or exploiting and monetising your intellectual property through licensing agreements.

Commercial contracts form the cornerstone of every business whether a small start-up or large plc, and getting these documents right first time can be crucial to whether or not your innovative ideas take off in a profitable way. Our team of commercial solicitors take the time to understand your company’s aims and needs so that we can ensure your contracts allow your business to develop whilst protecting your interests. Whether you are looking for some basic terms to get on a firm footing as you start out, or you want experienced negotiators to help secure a key contract with heavyweight business partners, we can provide clear and commercially minded advice to help you get those agreements locked in place.

If you are at the stage where your business can grow but can only grow fast enough with more investment, then it is likely that you need development capital. There are different sources of such funding, and we can advise on the suitability of proposed investors and make introductions. This is often the point at which the value of a business can increase rapidly, so it’s crucial to get the right legal advice on the terms of investment and the legal documentation required.

We are expert legal advisers in relation to Enterprise Investment Scheme and Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme investments, which are really attractive to investors because of the generous tax reliefs. We advise individual S/EIS investors, companies receiving S/EIS investment and advise on setting up S/EIS Funds and on those funds making investments. 

Where two or more parties come together to develop a business, it is of crucial importance that they get the right legal advice on what that structure should look like. We have experience of using partnerships, jointly owned companies, limited liability partnerships and other vehicles. We can advise on the best solution for each individual situation, designing it to meet the commercial, financial and tax requirements of the parties. One size does not fit all! Getting this right should both flag issues which might not otherwise get considered and avoid problems down the line.

Being clear on the terms on which you engage people is really important to ensure compliance with relevant employment and tax laws and regulations, in addition to providing certainty as to the nature and terms of the relationship. Our multi-award winning Employment team work with us to make sure that the businesses we advise get the very best practical and legal advice. We also advise on employee incentives, share schemes (including EMI) and can also provide HR consultancy and coaching expertise if needed.

Sometimes, for whatever reason, you may need to rip it up and start again. Whether it is lack of funding, colleagues falling out, technical issues or competitive pressure, sometimes that great idea needs moving to a new vehicle. When that happens, we can provide expert legal advice on how to move on, preserving the key assets but losing the problems. Our restructuring experts can show you how.

An important issue for any developing business is working out how best to monetise its innovative assets. A smart licensing strategy can release value in intellectual property and share the cost of development and expansion into new markets, helping your business to build success upon its creativity. Whether your products are best suited to a merchandising programme, on-premise licensing, or cloud-based ‘as-a-service’ licensing (such as SaaS), we can offer expert advice to ensure that the relevant agreements are properly structured, documented and managed to achieve the maximisation of the value of your assets whilst still protecting your underlying intellectual property rights.

Whether it’s GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, advertising and marketing regulations, website and privacy policies, consumer protection laws, or other niche regulations in your sector, tech businesses are becoming subject to ever-increasing sets of rules and regulations as governments try to maintain order in the digital age. When your business is small, it can be tempting to take chances that non-compliant behaviour won’t be noticed, but as your reputation grows any early mistakes could return to haunt you, and as such it is better (and less costly) to get it right first time. If you are unsure what personal data your business is processing, whether your marketing practices are going to get you into trouble, or whether you are operating in ways which are compliant with other regulations that apply to you, we can offer suitable advice at early stages so that you can embrace good practices from the start and avoid issues further down the road.