The Evolution of Entrepreneurial Finance: a New Typology
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University of Colorado Law School Colorado Law Scholarly Commons Articles Colorado Law Faculty Scholarship 2018 The Evolution of Entrepreneurial Finance: A New Typology J. Brad Bernthal University of Colorado Law School Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.law.colorado.edu/articles Part of the Agency Commons, Banking and Finance Law Commons, Business Organizations Law Commons, Contracts Commons, Internet Law Commons, Law and Economics Commons, and the Securities Law Commons Citation Information J. Brad Bernthal, The Evolution of Entrepreneurial Finance: A New Typology, 2018 BYU L. Rev. 773, available at https://scholar.law.colorado.edu/articles/1215/. Copyright Statement Copyright protected. Use of materials from this collection beyond the exceptions provided for in the Fair Use and Educational Use clauses of the U.S. Copyright Law may violate federal law. Permission to publish or reproduce is required. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Colorado Law Faculty Scholarship at Colorado Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles by an authorized administrator of Colorado Law Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 001.BERNTHAL_FIN2_NOHEADERS.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/17/19 8:20 PM The Evolution of Entrepreneurial Finance: A New Typology J. Brad Bernthal* There has been an explosion in new types of startup finance instruments. Whereas twenty years ago preferred stock dominated the field, startup companies and investors now use at least eight different instruments—six of which have only become widely used in the last decade. Legal scholars have yet to reflect upon the proliferation of instrument types in the aggregate. Notably missing is a way to organize instruments into a common framework that highlights their similarities and differences. This Article makes four contributions. First, it catalogues the variety of startup investment forms. I describe novel instruments, such as revenue-based financing, which remain understudied within law and entrepreneurship. Second, this Article shows the limitations of the debt vs. equity distinction as a classification method for startup financial contracts. Reliance on this traditional distinction obscures understanding of how instruments function. Third, the Article proposes a “new typology” to classify investment instruments based upon their economic, control, time, and regulatory dimensions. Three new broad categories— Payouts, Lock-in, and Park-n-ride—provide an insightful way to group these contracts. And fourth, the new typology explains how an expansion in instrument types creates complex capital structures which increase horizontal conflicts among startup investors. Further, new instruments increasingly place investors into a non-shareholder role that is outside the * Associate Professor of Law, University of Colorado Law School; Director of the Entrepreneurship Initiative, Silicon Flatirons Center. Thank you to John Bernthal, Sarah Boulden, Fred Bloom, Matt Burns, John Coyle, Deb Cantrell, Erik Gerding, Joel Gheen, Joseph Green, Cathy Hwang, Darian Ibrahim, John Ives, Matthew Jennejohn, Mark Loewenstein, Jason Mendelson, Dana Brakman Reiser, Andrew Schwartz, Andy Stock, Harry Surden, Phil Weiser, Jack Wroldsen, Eva Yao, participants in the 2017 LEA Workshop (Berkeley, CA), 2017 National Business Law Scholars Conference (Salt Lake City, UT), 2017 JBLC Workshop (Boulder, CO), 2018 LEA Workshop (Tuscaloosa, AL), and 2018 BYU Winter Deals Conference (Park City, UT). I am grateful for research assistance from Jack Vihstadt, Vincent Dimichele, Randy Coffey, and David Camerucci. Special thanks to Jack who labored through multiple versions of this Article and made many valuable contributions. 773 001.BERNTHAL_FIN2_NOHEADERS.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/17/19 8:20 PM BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW 2018 boundaries of corporate law’s protections. As early-stage investors increasingly fall outside the protections of corporate law, a greater burden shifts to contract law to resolve disputes arising from divergent investor interests. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 775 I. THE TWO SCHOLARLY WAVES OF ENTREPRENEURIAL FINANCE ..................... 785 II. THE VARIETY OF MODERN STARTUP INVESTMENT INSTRUMENTS ................. 789 A. A Catalogue of Nontraditional Investment Instruments ................... 789 1. Revenue-based financing .............................................................. 790 2. Demand dividend and social entrepreneurship variants ........... 794 3. Venture debt .................................................................................. 798 4. Light preferred (aka, series seed preferred) ................................. 800 5. Convertible debt ............................................................................ 803 6. Simple agreement for future equity (Safe) and similar variants ....................................................................................... 806 7. Prepayment ................................................................................... 809 8. Simple agreement for future tokens ............................................. 811 B. Why Now? New Startup Investment Participants Embrace Novel Instruments ............................................................................ 814 III. THE TRADITIONAL TYPOLOGY .................................................................. 817 A. Indicia of a Functional Typology and the Capital Structure Decision ............................................................................................. 818 B. The Capital Structure Paradigm Falls Short in Promoting Analysis of Startup Finance Instruments ......................................... 822 IV. A NEW TYPOLOGY OF ENTREPRENEURIAL INVESTMENT INSTRUMENTS ........ 828 A. Lock-in .................................................................................................. 829 B. Park-n-ride ............................................................................................ 831 C. Payouts .................................................................................................. 838 D. Summary Overview: Classifying Startup Financial Instruments with the New Typology .................................................................... 846 V. PUTTING THE NEW TYPOLOGY TO USE........................................................ 848 A. New Types of Horizontal Conflicts ..................................................... 849 B. The Diminished Role of Corporate Law for Startup Investments ...... 852 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 856 774 001.BERNTHAL_FIN2_NOHEADERS.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/17/19 8:20 PM 773 The Evolution of Entrepreneurial Finance INTRODUCTION New financial instruments confound the conventional wisdom that startups routinely rely upon stock issuances to raise capital.1 The Telluride Venture Accelerator (TVA) is in the business of investing in and launching new startups.2 The TVA offers capital and extensive help in exchange for a stake in a startup. The unusual part of TVA’s program is that, in lieu of stock, the TVA invested in certain portfolio companies through a form of variable loan, called Revenue-Based Financing (RBF).3 This form of investment makes TVA a lender rather than a shareholder. Meanwhile, MadKudu is a software startup in Mountain View, California, that sells big data tools to analyze customer behavior patterns. To fuel operations, in November 2015 MadKudu raised a $1.4 million seed round from a French investment fund and several angel investors. The investment used an instrument popularized on the West Coast, the Simple Agreement for Future Equity (Safe).4 1. The “conventional wisdom”—increasingly debunked by scholars—is that startups “rely almost exclusively on equity funding from angel investors and venture capitalists (VCs).” Darian M. Ibrahim, Debt as Venture Capital, 2010 U. ILL. L. REV. 1169, 1170 [hereinafter Debt as Venture Capital]. The term “startup” in general parlance refers to a private company, with high growth ambition, that has yet to reach an exit event. See, e.g., Jeff Schwartz, Should Mutual Funds Invest in Startups? A Case Study of Fidelity Magellan Fund’s Investments in Unicorns (and Other Startups) and the Regulatory Implications, 95 N.C. L. REV. 1341 (2017) (referring to startups including Uber and Airbnb). High growth ambition is important. “Startup” is typically used in contradistinction to “small business.” A startup seeks to scale— that is, replicate and rapidly grow—a business idea or product in a short amount of time. See Brad Bernthal, Investment Accelerators, 21 STAN. J.L. BUS. & FIN. 139, 142 n.8 (2016). For example, a nifty software solution that creates a better search engine (i.e., Google) fuels a startup. In contrast, a small business pursues a business model or idea that is, relative to a startup, less replicable and less likely to experience rapid growth. A charismatic chef in a food truck who creates a great experience for a customer is involved in a small business. Of course, boundaries between a startup and small business are a matter of degree, not binary, and what initially appears as a small business may prove to be surprisingly scalable. For example, a better coffee shop experience (i.e., Starbucks) turned out to be more than just a small business. 2. The TVA is an example of