The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) recently released updates to its model legal documents for the first time since 2014. The model forms were created in an effort to introduce efficiency and some measure of standardization to the process of documenting early-stage venture funding rounds, and are widely used in the VC community.
Notably, the NVCA made certain changes that are reflective of recent emerging trends in the tech community, including provisions related to cryptocurrencies and sexual harassment and discrimination.
With respect to cryptocurrencies, the NVCA added a new protective provision to the model Certificate of Incorporation giving investors a veto right over crypto token offerings. This is in line with what we've been seeing in the market over the past six months or so, as we wrote about here.
With respect to sexual harassment and discrimination, the NVCA added a new covenant to the model Investor Rights Agreement requiring startups to adopt and maintain a code of conduct addressing workplace behavior and a policy prohibiting discrimination and harassment. In this regard, the NVCA included sample forms of a code of conduct, diversity/inclusion policy, and anti-harassment policy in its new set of model legal documents.
A brief summary of these and other key changes made by the NVCA, as well as a link to download the updated model forms, is available here.
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