Insights

For Australian companies, an ESOP, employee share scheme or share plan can be a great way to attract and retain staff by giving them a future stake in the business. But the position becomes much more complicated when the company wants to offer options to employees based overseas. What looks like a simple extension of an Australian employee share option plan can quickly become an expensive and time-consuming compliance exercise. Once you move into the world of multi-national share plans or global share plans, you are no longer just dealing

In Australia, across early and growth-stage funding, convertible notes, SAFEs and warrants are rarely used in isolation. They are typically layered over time – sometimes deliberately, sometimes opportunistically, as founders raise capital in stages before a larger priced equity round. Having examined each instrument individually in the earlier articles in this series, it is equally important to understand how each instrument operates together. The practical consequences of capital raising often emerge not from the terms of a single instrument, but from the way multiple instruments interact within a company’s capital

In startup and venture financing, a startup warrant is a right, but not an obligation, to purchase shares in a company at a predetermined price (known as the strike price) within a specified period. Warrants are often issued alongside other investment instruments to provide additional upside to investors or strategic partners. They are commonly used in venture debt arrangements, strategic investment transactions and advisory agreements to help align incentives between investors and the company. Warrants are a familiar feature of startup and scaleup financing, but they are often less well