
Ask HN: Is VC fundraising considered a partial sale of the company? - throwaway11x11
TLDR: I was employee at a startup that gave me equity and secretively clawed it back then fired me few months later. Is the law around &quot;sale of company&quot; established to be a full sale of company or can it be a partial sale (e.g. equity to VCs)? Can I effectively pursue legal action against the startup?<p>I&#x27;ve worked at the startup before they had major traction and had equity as part of the my compensation with a 4 year vesting period. After my equity has fully vested and before the company publicly announced a major round of VC fundraising (first round ever), the company asked me to sign a new agreement without any equity. I was sent the a new employment contract at 9am and was asked to sign it by 5pm during a busy work day. I didn&#x27;t have enough time to carefully review its terms or seek advice of counsel. Few months later, the startup fired me, so I curiously reviewed my 2 employment and noticed that the equity clause was missing from the new agreement, thus sparking this question.<p>Under the old employment contract, the terms of the equity were that I had to be a full-time employee at the time of &quot;sale of company&quot;. Does partial sale of company (e.g. equity) to VCs count as &quot;sale of company&quot; and thus trigger a bonus for me?<p>Please ask clarifying questions if you need more details before providing an answer. I greatly appreciate your advice.
======
raltok
Hi everyone,

We’re launching a live course on software startup formation with Shawn Kung,
Venture Partner at AV8 Ventures, a VC firm based in Silicon Valley. He’s also
an angel investor at Y Combinator Demo Day as well as a Stanford Lecturer. The
course includes:

\- 6 weekly live lectures with Shawn and all the other students (2h each)

\- Guest speakers (founders & investors from Shawn’s network)

\- 1-1 office hours

\- Unlimited Q&A on the course private Slack channel

\- Startup mini project where students will form teams and pitch a business
idea to Shawn

\- Lifetime access to Shawn’s Slack channel & private LinkedIn group for
alumni

We are 75% full. Class is capped at 50 students. The live course will kick off
on July 23. Schedule for the lectures is 5-7pm PT.

Link: [https://flatwyse.com/venture-startup-
formation](https://flatwyse.com/venture-startup-formation)

------
allenleein
I'm so sorry to hear this, I have witnessed my ex CEO did the similar things
to my colleague. I can imagine how horrible the feeling might be.

I'm not legal expert, I really hope someone here can help you with that. IMO,
I think the fastest way to get justice is to expose this kind of founder to a
powerful media, like Susan Flower did to Uber, but anonymously.

