Money doesn't move on a handshake in a funding round — it moves once both sides agree on paper what the deal actually looks like. That's what a term sheet is for. It's the first real document in an investment, the one where an investor's interest turns into specific numbers: how much they're putting in, what they get for it, and what strings come attached. Get it wrong, or leave it vague, and the "final" agreement six weeks later ends up renegotiating things everyone thought were already settled. LegalDev drafts and reviews term sheets so that doesn't happen to you.
A term sheet is a short document — usually a few pages, not the fifty-page contract that comes later — that lays out the main terms an investor and a company have agreed to in principle. Think of it as the skeleton of the deal. The valuation, how much money is coming in, what percentage of the company that buys, and the rights that come with it all get written down here first, before lawyers on both sides sit down to turn it into a full investment agreement.
It's not the final word. Most of a term sheet is intentionally non-binding, which gives both sides room to walk away if due diligence turns up something unexpected. But a handful of clauses — confidentiality and exclusivity, mainly — usually are binding from the day it's signed, and founders sometimes miss that detail until it costs them.
Because negotiating everything in a fifty-page shareholders' agreement is slow, expensive, and a bad place to discover that you and your investor disagree on something basic — like whether the round is priced or convertible, or who gets a board seat. A term sheet forces that conversation early, while it's cheap to have.
It also does something practical for fundraising itself. Once a term sheet is signed, other prospective investors know the round has real momentum, and the company can point to it as evidence a serious party is already in.
No two term sheets look identical — a seed-stage SAFE-style sheet looks nothing like a Series B term sheet with a full liquidation stack — but most cover the same ground:
A poorly worded liquidation preference or an anti-dilution clause copied from a template built for a different kind of round can quietly cost founders a lot more equity than they realise at the time.
Partly. Most operative clauses — valuation, investment amount, board rights — are drafted as non-binding, meaning either party can walk away before the definitive agreements are signed, usually if diligence raises red flags. But exclusivity, confidentiality, and sometimes a break-fee clause are typically made binding on purpose, precisely so a company can't sign a term sheet, quietly shop the deal to three other investors, and drop the first one if a better offer shows up.
If you're unsure which clauses in your draft are binding and which aren't, that's usually the single most important thing to get a lawyer to check before you sign anything.
People use these two terms almost interchangeably, and that's where confusion creeps in.
A term sheet is the preliminary, largely non-binding outline signed early in a negotiation. A shareholders' agreement (SHA) is the full, legally binding contract signed at closing that governs how the company is actually run afterward — voting procedures, transfer restrictions, drag-along and tag-along rights, and dispute resolution, spelled out in detail.
The term sheet sets direction. The SHA (along with a share subscription agreement, in most Indian rounds) is what actually gets executed and enforced.
We don't start from a generic template and swap in your company name. Every round is different — a friends-and-family seed check has almost nothing in common, legally, with a Series A led by an institutional VC — so the first thing we do is understand what kind of round this actually is.
Yes. It's the document that captures the core deal terms — valuation, investment amount, and key rights — before the lengthy, legally binding shareholders' agreement is drafted. Skipping it and going straight to a full contract usually means renegotiating basics mid-way, which slows the deal down rather than speeding it up.
At minimum: the investment amount, valuation, type of security, equity percentage, board and voting rights, and the exclusivity period. Beyond that, it depends on the round — a priced equity round and a convertible note round will each need different clauses.
Only the parts drafted as binding — typically confidentiality, exclusivity, and sometimes a break fee. The commercial terms themselves are almost always non-binding until the definitive agreements are signed.
The term sheet is short, preliminary, and mostly non-binding. The shareholders' agreement is the detailed, fully binding contract signed at closing that actually governs the company going forward.
Anywhere from two to five working days for a straightforward round, depending on how much back-and-forth is needed on valuation and rights between the company and the investor.
Strongly recommended. Investor-drafted term sheets are written to protect the investor first. A quick review before signing can catch liquidation preference multiples or anti-dilution terms that are heavier than what's standard for your round stage.