In May 2024, at Bahçeşehir University, as part of the From Zero to Summit conference organized by the BAU Startup Society student club, our Managing Partner Erdem Mümtaz Hacıpaşaoğlu led the Startup Law session.
The central thesis of the session was clear: for a startup to be a “well-governed company,” the foundations of corporate law must be set correctly; the risks of tech-driven businesses, in turn, require integrating IT law into the startup’s practice from an early stage.
The corporate-law side
Entity choice, partner balances, vesting, transfer restrictions, exit rights, investor-protection clauses and decision-making mechanics were addressed as the foundational building blocks of a startup.
The IT-law side
The session unpacked the topics tech-driven businesses face — KVKK compliance, user agreements and privacy policies, cybersecurity obligations, intellectual property and open-source licensing — along with disputes specific to the digital era.
Highlights from this session
- Corporate: Entity choice, vesting, exit rights
- IT law: KVKK, user agreements, IP, open source
- Practitioner view: Risk thresholds for university-stage founders
You can read Mümtaz’s LinkedIn post at this link.
