What is a founder's service agreement?
The basics: This document is an employment contract (or service agreement) that sets out the key information, responsibilities, and rights between a senior employee (specifically, a founder) and a company. This document should not be used for another type of senior employee (e.g. a director or general senior employee). You should not use this document as a regular employment contract for more junior employees (see our Employment Contract template instead).
Why do I need a founder's service agreement?
Key protections: It contains the key terms of what the founder can expect from their role, including their salary, location of work, benefits etc. It also expressly appoints the founder as a member of the board of directors of the company, which comes with specific responsibilities, obligations and restrictions (mainly under the Companies Act 2006).
IP protection: This document assumes that the employee may or will be creating IP rights during their employment. If this optional clause is included, the document will need to be executed as a deed (i.e., stated to be a deed, and signed in the presence of a witness) as this clause allows the company to act as power of attorney for the employee. The template will automatically adapt depending on whether or not you choose to include the IP clause.
Post-termination protections: The document includes standard post-termination restrictive covenants, however these should be reasonably tailored to the role.
This founder's service agreement template assumes that the employee is being engaged by a UK registered company and that the agreement is governed by English law.
Why Docue?
Created by lawyers: Docue’s founder's service agreement template is lawyer-made, lawyer-maintained, and has lawyer-crafted guidelines to steer you through every stage of drafting an agreement which is right for your business.
Simple and easy: Docue allows your business to create, customise, sign, store, and manage your agreements all in one place. Simply click through the intelligent tick box options and text box answers and you’ll have a comprehensive, tailored, and ready-to-use founder's service agreement in no time.
Full contract process: Once you have created a contract that is tailored to your business needs, you can send the contract to each of the parties for electronic signature. After the contract is signed, you can store the agreement in Docue’s smart storage vault to ensure you always have quick and easy access to your contracts in one place. You can ensure you never miss a contract renewal again by enabling Docue’s handy reminders to notify yourself of the next upcoming deadline.
Tags: senior employee, founder's service contract, founder's employment contract, founder's service agreement
