Legal & compliance during Fundraising with Anisha Patnaik of Lexstart.
The webinar on legal and compliance commenced with a talk on the due diligence process with the keynote speaker Ms Anisha Patnaik addressing the steps that entrepreneurs need to follow to complete every legal intricacy. She stressed on making sure the compliance is completed as not paying heed to the legalities could result in heavy penalties being levied. Various other topics were discussed as the webinar took a gradual course from addressing legal matters of importance to answering concepts raised as queries by the audience. One such concept discussed at length was the IPs- registered and unregistered. Paitnaik talked about the Intellectual property assignment agreement and how important it is to get IPs done. Giving the talk a bit of a contemporary angle, she shed light on the online stamping method and the validity of it all, considering businesses are being handled completely virtually during the pandemic. ‘Not stamping an agreement does not render it illegal. If printed on a letterhead it's still valid. You will have to pay a penalty for not paying a stamp duty initially”, she said, further adding, “Online stamping is done by state governments, hence they're absolutely valid!”
Anisha also discussed the ideal agreement set up between co-founders and advisors. She insisted that the employment agreement and co-founder agreement should be prioritised as the investors look for whether the company is properly set up including contracts with employees and commercial entities and rights of existing stakeholders.
Staying true to the series title, Anisha mentioned her personal hiccups on the journey to founding her own company. Other subjects covered in the session included-
HR policies
DD checklists
Shareholding structure
Investor priorities
Inefficacies of the Indian system
Procedures to look out for, etc.
Overall the session was quite a success with maximum audience interaction and positive feedback.
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