Doc automation pioneer Clarilis has launched an Early-Stage Investment Suite for UK venture capital transactions, in partnership with Addleshaw Goddard.
The new automated doc suite follows the launch of a collection of NVCA/CVCA documents for the US market in 2023. This time the suite is based on the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association’s (BVCA) revised model form documents, with additional content from Addleshaws.
Clarilis has made several similar partnerships combining legal insights with specialised sets of documents. In recent years they have worked with leading Irish firm Arthur Cox, as well as legal knowledge platform FromCounsel, among others.
In this case, the BVCA’s membership includes over 250 private equity and VC firms, plus around 100 institutional investors and 200 professional services firms. So, developing automated documents that meet their members’ needs and conform to their standards should provide a useful resource.
The Early-Stage Investment suite includes automated docs for: articles of association, subscription agreement, shareholders’ agreement, registration rights agreement and disclosure and confidentiality letters.
Clarilis and UK-based law firm Addleshaw Goddard have also provided additional market-standard content, which includes over 30 automated ancillary precedents and forms (e.g. term sheet, warrants, minutes, resolutions, appointments, and filings), plus drafting options commonly seen in the market for the core BVCA documents.
James Quinn, CEO at Clarilis, commented: ‘Since the BVCA substantially revised and updated their model form documents in 2023, we have received numerous requests from client firms to automate the BVCA suite. We are delighted to deliver a substantial automation here for the market with the corporate team at Addleshaw Goddard – including not only the BVCA forms, but also all commonly used ancillary documents. Addleshaw Goddard’s corporate team has an excellent reputation and is extremely forward-thinking when it comes to digitisation of the practice of law.’
While David Anderson, a partner at Addleshaws, said: ‘We have been advising in the space for a long time and have a genuine interest in how the sector can evolve. This automation will accelerate document delivery while maintaining our hallmark quality standards and represents a significant advancement for our clients. We are delighted to share our knowledge in this area and work with Clarilis, with its history of producing great automations, to see the market as a whole benefit.’
The move clearly will help lawyers working in the VC world to save time in the drafting process, and as Clarilis noted ‘this increase in efficiency is particularly important in today’s dealmaking environment and allows firms to concentrate on more complex aspects of the deal. Investor and company clients alike will benefit from the fast turn-around’.
As this site has mentioned before, the strategy of combining the doc collections of organisations that have set the standards for a particular industry area, along with the input of subject matter experts, in this case Addleshaw Goddard, to drive efficiency around doc automation makes total sense.