Series A fundraising: structure your growth capital the right way

When your startup becomes a company investors take seriously

A Series A round is more than just "the next raise." It's the moment your startup becomes a company investors take seriously, where governance, valuation, and control start to matter as much as growth.

At dups, we help founders navigate that transition. Our integrated legal and financial team guides you through the full Series A process: from investor readiness and term sheet design to closing and post-deal structuring. We make sure your first institutional round builds momentum, not friction.

Why Series A is a turning point

At seed stage, investors back potential. At Series A, they invest in systems, in a company that can scale, measure, and govern itself.

That's where most founders feel the shift. Suddenly, you're negotiating liquidation preferences, board seats, and anti-dilution rights, all while managing growth pressure. Without alignment between your legal structure and financial model, small mistakes can have long-term consequences.

We make sure your valuation, governance, and investor rights evolve coherently. Your deal terms stay clean, scalable, and ready for Series B, not traps that limit your next move.

Our Series A fundraising approach

1. Investor readiness and strategy

We begin with clarity, understanding your growth story, your metrics, and your capital needs. We assess your valuation, forecast your dilution scenarios, and model what your round should look like at closing and at Series B.

Then we prepare your materials: your financial model, your investor memo, and your data room. Our goal is simple: when investors look under the hood, they find order, not chaos.

2. Investor engagement and term sheet negotiation

We help you identify and approach the right investors: institutional VCs, corporate funds, or international syndicates. As offers arrive, we analyze each term sheet clause by clause.

We translate legal conditions into financial outcomes, so you know how liquidation preferences, anti-dilution clauses, or option pool expansions affect your equity and control. Our dual perspective (legal and financial) means we help you negotiate intelligently, balancing investor expectations with founder protection.

3. Documentation and closing

Once you've selected your lead investor, we coordinate the entire documentation flow: subscription agreements, shareholders' agreement (SHA), and completion steps. We ensure your governance structure matches the deal you negotiated and that your equity documentation is consistent with your financial model.

Closing a Series A involves more stakeholders, more complexity, and more risk. We keep it simple, fast, and aligned.

What makes dups different

At dups, we bring together financial modeling, legal structuring, and investor negotiation, all under one roof. There's no gap between what's in your spreadsheet and what's in your SHA.

We move quickly, but never carelessly. Our job is to make sure your Series A is a platform for the next round, not a constraint that traps you later.

We've worked on both sides, as advisors to founders and as counsel in VC transactions, so we know what investors expect, where they compromise, and how to keep your leverage intact.

Deliverables you can expect

You receive everything you need to raise and close efficiently:

• Complete financial model with dilution scenarios
• Reviewed term sheet with negotiation notes
• Clean cap table
• Full set of legal agreements (SHA, subscription, convertible instruments if applicable)
• Coordination for closing

Each deliverable is tailored to your round size, investor type, and jurisdiction. We don't just prepare documents; we build a structure that can scale to your next round.