Founders' agreement template for UK startups.
The founders' agreement answers the questions that are cheap now and ruinous later: who owns what, what happens when a founder leaves, who decides what, and who owns the IP everyone has been building on nights and weekends.
Every venture that dies of co-founder conflict was sure it would not. The agreement is not a sign of distrust; it is the record of what everyone believed while everyone still agreed.
The moments this document comes up.
- Two or more of you are building something real and nothing is written down.
- Equity has been discussed in a pub and remembered differently.
- One founder is full-time and another is not, and the split should reflect it.
- An incubator, accelerator, or first investor asks how the founding team is documented.
What the template covers.
The sections below mirror the document the generator drafts. Every template is a starting point, not legal advice, and says so on its face.
01
The venture and equity split
02
Vesting
03
Roles and time
04
Intellectual property
05
Decisions and deadlock
06
Money and confidentiality
Drafted from choices you make.
A downloaded template hands you someone else's prose with holes in it. Here the document is generated from a settings sheet, so the wording follows your answers, and changing an answer later regenerates the parts it touches.
FOUNDERS' AGREEMENT
SETTINGS- JurisdictionEngland & Wales
- Vesting4 years, 1-year cliff
- Founders3
- Reserved decisionsUnanimous
After generating, the document opens in the editor like any other: edits arrive as tracked changes you accept or reject, compliance checks run against real rulepacks, and exports come out as print-ready PDF or DOCX your lawyer can redline. What a compliance check actually does →
Fair questions.
When should founders sign this?
Before the company has value, which means earlier than feels necessary: ideally at or before incorporation. Every month of unwritten understanding adds a month of divergent memory. The hardest version of this conversation is the one that happens after a term sheet arrives.
What vesting schedule do startups actually use?
Four years with a one-year cliff is the standard shape the template defaults to: nothing vests in year one, a quarter vests at the cliff, the rest monthly. Founders sometimes negotiate credit for time already served. Investors will expect vesting to exist; having it already agreed avoids having it imposed on the investor's terms.
Is this the same as a shareholders' agreement?
It is the founder-stage precursor. A full shareholders' agreement, usually put in place at a priced round with counsel, covers investor rights and runs much longer. The founders' agreement covers the founder-to-founder questions that cannot wait for that round: equity, vesting, roles, IP, and exits.
Related templates.
Advisor agreement
Put an advisor relationship in writing: scope, equity, vesting, and conflicts.
Employment contract
A compliant England & Wales employment contract: particulars, IP, confidentiality, notice.
Mutual non-disclosure agreement
A mutual NDA both sides can sign without a fight: obligations, carve-outs, and term.
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