There have been many different language translations of Venture Deals since it was first published in 2012. The first German translation of Venture Deals 4e is out, and Florian Kreis did an amazing job.

Florian aimed to modify the book as little as possible, even if the relevant passages did not correspond 100% to German best practices but were still feasible to implement. He believes the structures originally developed in the U.S. have become the international standard and are a great role model for Germany.

However, the challenge in revising the book this way is putting these structures into the context of German law. Sometimes, this required minor changes or simply using the correct language. In other cases, it was a lot more challenging.

Following, in Florian’s words, are several examples of things he had to modify more extensively.

Corporate law: In Germany, most companies in general and most VC-financed companies are structured in the legal form of a “Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung” (GmbH). Larger companies often convert to the “Aktiengesellschaft” (AG) later, especially if they want to go public. Both the GmbH and the AG are corporations. In addition, many GmbH & Co. KG companies exist in Germany. They correspond in their structure roughly to a Limited Liability Company (LLC). GmbH & Co. KG companies have decisive tax disadvantages for startups and are, therefore, rarely used in this area. The GmbH has a great advantage in that it can be structured very flexibly. You can deviate from the (Read more...)