Startup Wise Guys and EIT Digital have released their annual Baltic Startup Scene report, outlining the state of the Baltic startup ecosystem and the progress made over the past year.
Amid COVID-19, the Baltics’ fintech sector saw a particular increase in the number of startups dealing with lending and debt, wealth management, insurtech, regtech and small and midsize business (SMB) finance, the research found.
The year also saw the emergence of startups focusing on sustainable finance as well as finance for specific societal subsections, including the aging population, kids and unbanked individuals.
One notable trend in 2020 was embedded fintech where financial services, rather than being offered as standalone products, are part of the native user interface of other products, becoming thus embedded. This is making it increasingly difficult to differentiate between pure fintech players versus software companies with financial consumer products and features.
Source: Fintech baltic
This form of consent may be used in equity investment transactions where any of founders is married and/or his or her shares in the company are part of joint ownership of the spouses.
This checklist template serves as an example list of information that early stage investors normally ask in the due diligence process before they close the deal. It may be used as a guide for organising company’s corporate and legal records.
This is a sample capitalisation table that can be used to plan and model simple seed equity and convertible financing rounds.
This template of the Articles of Association supplements the Seed Shareholders’ Agreement and should be used only together with the template for Seed Equity Investment Agreement and the Seed Shareholders’ Agreement.The Articles of Association must be approved by the shareholders of the Company and filed with the Estonian Commercial Register after which it becomes public and automatically binding on each current and future shareholder of the company.Please note that an identical Estonian language version of these Articles is also available on this site. The Estonian language version of the Articles is the official version that must be filed with the Estonian Commercial Register.Any changes that are made to the English language version should be made in parallel to the Estonian version and vice versa.
This agreement is to be used for a seed stage financing round that is proposed to be executed in the form of straight equity.It should be used only together with the template for Seed Equity Investment Agreement and Articles of Association for Seed Shareholders’ Agreement (in Estonian and English) as some of the essential terms of the deal are reflected only in these documents.
This agreement is to be used for an early stage financing round that is proposed to be executed in the form of straight equity.It should be used only together with the template for Seed Shareholders’ Agreement and Articles of Association for Seed Shareholders’ Agreement (in Estonian and English) as some of the essential terms of the deal are reflected only in these documents.
This term sheet is to be used to summarize the main terms of a seed stage financing round that is proposed to be executed in the form of straight equity.
This is a modified version of one of the forms of Postmoney SAFE distributed by Y-Combinator and available at http://ycombinator.com/documents. The original SAFE is governed by US laws. This modified version of the SAFE is tailored for use by Estonian companies in Estonia and, accordingly, a number of changes have been, taking into consideration the laws and legal concepts in Estonia.Please note that this modified version of the SAFE has not been disseminated or approved in any way by Y Combinator Management LLC or any of its affiliates.There is a separate PDF version available on this site titled “Postmoney Safe – Valuation Cap and Discount v 1.1 (Estonia) (comparison with YC Postmoney SAFE)” which shows all changes made to the original version together with explanations for each material change. PLEASE CONSULT WITH AN ATTORNEY OR LAWYER IN ESTONIA BEFORE USING THIS DOCUMENT.
This agreement is to be used to secure necessary shareholders’ approval for a convertible or SAFE financing round. It should be signed before the company signs any convertible loan agreement or SAFE with any investor and the form of the convertible loan agreement or SAFE negotiated and agreed with the investor(s) should be appended to the agreement.
This agreement is to be used for a seed stage financing round that is proposed to be executed in the form of a convertible loan. It uses the concept of “Series” to allow investors to join the round at different points of time while applying the same terms for all investors in the round.
This term sheet is to be used to summarize the main terms of a seed stage financing round that is proposed to be executed in the form of a convertible loan. It uses the concept of “Series” to allow investors to join the round at different points of time while applying the same terms for all investors in the round.
This template of an option agreement is intended for use to grant options to company’s employees, management board members, advisors and other service providers.Please note that any modification of the terms of this template may have significant tax consequences so it is essential to consult legal and tax advisers before making any amendments.Please also note that this agreement is not suitable in its current form for granting options to legal entities.
This agreement regulates the company’s relationship with its management board member in his capacity as such.It governs the following key matters, among others: board members’ specific role and duties, reporting obligations, non-compete, non-solicitation and confidentiality obligations, remuneration and other benefits (if any), holidays and terms for early termination of the agreement.Please note that management board members are not automatically entitled to statutory legal protection and social guarantees applicable to employees.
This agreement regulates the company’s relationship with its management board member in his capacity as such.It governs the following key matters, among others: board members’ specific role and duties, reporting obligations, non-compete, non-solicitation and confidentiality obligations, remuneration, and other benefits (if any), holiday and terms for early termination of the agreement.Please note that management board members are not automatically entitled to statutory legal protection and social guarantees applicable to employees.
This template of an employment agreement is intended for use for employees in Estonia.Some of the main characteristics distinguishing the employment agreement from other types of agreements for services are the following: employment agreements are generally signed for an unspecified term, an employer must pay minimum wages and is responsible for the working environment; the employee is subordinate to the management and control of the company; an employee has the right to holiday and holiday pay and certain other social guarantees.If the company grants options to an employee, then the template of an Option Agreement should be used in addition to this agreement.
The aim of a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA, is to protect the company’s sensitive information from being disclosed to a third party.This template is intended for use at very early stages of business when deciding whether to collaborate with some other person or entity. It is not intended to cover collaboration going forward. It is a one-way agreement, which is appropriate if only the company is sharing sensitive information, but the other side is not sharing any sensitive information. A mutual non-disclosure agreement is more appropriate if both are sharing sensitive information with each other.This non-disclosure agreement is not intended to be used for potential investors. Please be aware that professional investors often refuse to sign a non-disclosure agreements as, amongst other things, this may restrict their ability to seek out and evaluate other potential investments.
The IP Assignment and License Agreement is an agreement which transfers the ownership and rights of IP described in the agreement from an individual (e.g. person who has created IP in connection with the company’s business before becoming a founder, employee, consultant or contractor) to the company.This agreement should only be used for straightforward circumstances to transfer existing IP, where such IP is easy to identify and define. IP must be described in sufficient detail to clearly identify what is assigned.
The Articles of Association regulate, among others, the matters that require prior approval by the founders, the required majority to adopt founders’ decisions and the conditions under which the founders may transfer their shares to other persons. The Articles of Association must be approved by the shareholders of the Company and filed with the Estonian Commercial Register after which it becomes public and automatically binding on each current and future shareholder of the company. Please note that an identical Estonian language version of these Articles is also available on this site. The Estonian language version of the Articles is the official version that must be filed with the Estonian Commercial Register. Any changes that are made to the English language version should be made in parallel to the Estonian version and vice versa.
Founders’ agreement governs the founders’ relations vis-a-vis each other and the company. It is one of the first agreements to be signed by the founders and it regulates, among other things, the role and responsibilities of each founder, their obligation not to compete with the company, and not to disclose its business secrets. It also regulates what happens to the founder’s shares if a founder leaves the company during an agreed period (so called reverse vesting provisions). This founders’ agreement should not be confused with the foundation agreement (asutamisleping) which is a statutory document to incorporate a company and register it with the Commercial Register. This template is designed for very early stages of the company and does not include more complex provisions that are seen in later stages where investors join the company.