Invitation and Demo Request
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) model term sheet is a solid starting point. But deals don’t happen in a vacuum — and real-world nuance matters.
Here are 10 things I always recommend including in a term sheet to save you from confusion, drift, or unnecessary friction later:
Yes, include pre-money valuation and price per share.
But also attach a cap table showing actual post-close ownership, fully diluted.
Too many deals get tripped up arguing about percentages that were “understood” differently.
Pro tip: Make sure it includes the option pool and any convertible instruments still outstanding.
Specify exactly how many seats there are, who appoints whom, and whether seats are tied to specific share classes or % thresholds.
Real world trick: Add what happens in the next round. Do current investors lose seats? Keep them as observers?
Define what actions require preferred consent — mergers, new equity, debt, hiring/firing execs, etc.
Bonus tip: Don’t just say “standard NVCA list.” Call out any non-standard protections so they don’t get buried later.
1x, participating, non-participating, capped? Get specific.
Real world risk: If you’re stacking multiple rounds, clarify whether preferences are pari passu or senior by class. This becomes a huge deal in down exits.
Will the option pool come from the pre-money or post-money? And how big is it?
Pro tip: Get both sides to agree to an actual option budget, not just a % placeholder — especially if you’re hiring aggressively post-close.
Are founders fully vested? Will any shares re-vest? What happens if someone leaves?
Real world trick: If there’s a cliff or accelerated vesting, define the triggers. Don’t assume everyone reads “single trigger” the same way.
Spell out who gets to participate in future rounds — and for how long.
Pro tip: If early investors are getting squeezed in future pro rata, this is the place to protect them.
Define what investors get and how often — financials, board decks, budgets.
Real world trick: If someone’s putting in real money but won’t have a board seat, use this section to keep them informed without making the board table too crowded.
You don’t need a spreadsheet, but a basic breakdown helps avoid future friction.
Pro tip: Call it out if any founder liquidity or debt paydown is part of the round — no one likes surprises here.
This is your catch-all for whatever’s unique to your deal:
Real world trick: If it affects control, economics, or perception — it belongs in the term sheet.
The best way to protect a deal is to document alignment early.
The worst mistake? Treating the term sheet as a handshake, then being surprised when final docs don’t match.
It catches the drift, flags missing terms, and makes sure what you sign at the end is what everyone agreed to at the start.
Because clean deals don’t start with clean term sheets.They start with clear ones.
Legal and corporate professionals often deal with massive volumes of documents spread across multiple folders. Reviewing these files individually can be time-consuming, inefficient, and prone to oversight. Critical insights may be buried deep within contracts, compliance files, or financial records, making it difficult to see the bigger picture.
Aracor’sHolistic Contract Analysis is an AI legal solution that allows users to analyze entire folders cohesively, transforming automated legal workflows. Rather than manually reviewing each document, legal teams can instantly process and extract key insights across all files, ensuring no critical detail is missed. This feature provides a structured and efficient approach to due diligence, enabling professionals to make data-driven decisions with confidence.
Aracor’s Holistic contract Analysis leverages AI legal software to scan, categorize, and analyze documents within an entire folder. It identifies crucial clauses, obligations, and risks across multiple files, presenting the results in an easy-to-understand format. This eliminates the need for manual searches and allows legal teams to focus on strategic decision-making instead of administrative tasks.
Users can seamlessly assess compliance reports, contract obligations, and financial agreements within a unified framework. By connecting related documents and surfacing key findings, Holistic Folder Analysis ensures legal professionals can quickly grasp patterns, discrepancies, and compliance risks.
Due diligence is all about efficiency, accuracy, and comprehensive oversight. Traditional document review methods often involve fragmented analysis, where legal teams must sift through documents one by one. This not only slows down decision-making but also increases the risk of missing vital information.
Holistic Folder Analysis eliminates these inefficiencies by providing a big-picture view while maintaining granular accuracy. Whether handling M&A transactions, AI contract review, regulatory compliance checks, or contract negotiations, this feature enables legal professionals to move faster while ensuring thorough review and compliance adherence.
Beyond document review, Holistic Contract Analysis powers Holistic Reporting and Analysis, allowing users to generate detailed reports that provide comprehensive insights. These reports encompass portfolio evaluations, compliance assessments, and key findings that empower legal teams to make well-informed decisions at scale.
With AI powered document review automation, professionals can easily compare contract terms, identify risks, and streamline contract management with AI, without spending countless hours on manual review. The ability to generate reports instantly enhances workflow efficiency and allows teams to focus on higher-value tasks
As legal workflows become more complex, Holistic Contract Analysis is transforming how professionals manage due diligence, contract analysis, and compliance evaluations. By eliminating inefficiencies and providing actionable insights across entire document sets, this feature helps legal teams stay ahead in a fast-moving world.
With Aracor, document review is no longer a bottleneck. Experience the power of Holistic Contract Analysis today. Schedule a demo.
One of the biggest blind spots in legal and deal work?
I’ve seen it everywhere — from early-stage companies to complex, PE-backed portfolios:
Everyone obsesses over the signing. And then the deal docs get zipped into a folder, buried in a drive, and forgotten — until someone must dig them up in a crisis.
But here’s the thing: your law firm moves on. You don’t.
The general counsel, the CFO, the investor — you are the one who must live with the deal.
You’re the one fielding questions. Tracking veto rights. Checking compliance. Untangling what got signed when no one can remember which version was final.
Legal portfolio management isn’t just about avoiding mistakes. It’s about staying in control of the structures you’ve already built.
Who has what board rights across your cap table?
When do special veto powers expire — or kick in?
How do distribution waterfalls work across a multi-entity structure?
What quiet landmines are sitting in your old side letters, convertible notes, or carve-outs?
If you can’t answer these quickly, you’re not managing your portfolio.You’re just constantly reacting to it.
Recently, I talked to a deal team whose lawyer retired and left no successor to manage past deals. They were especially concerned about their new counsel's ramp-up period — particularly around buried investor side letters, MFN clauses, and nuanced investor rights hidden deep in their portfolio.
Not just to pull clauses. But to guide teams through the structural reality of the deal: Board control. Voting dynamics. Liquidity rights. True-up provisions. Waterfall math.
Across dozens — or hundreds — of contracts, over time.
Aracor doesn’t just store your deals. It understands them. So you can respond with confidence — anytime someone asks, “What are we actually obligated to do here?”
If you're managing post-close complexity, there's a better way.
Aracor delivers real-time insights, and risk detection
built for deal teams across family office, in-house, private equity, and venture capital.