What is Series A?
A Series A is a company’s first significant priced equity financing: typically the first round in which institutional venture capital firms lead the investment, the company issues a new class of preferred stock (Series A Preferred), and the financing follows the structural template of the NVCA model documents. The Series A is the structural and economic inflection point between “founder/angel/SAFE” capital and “institutional VC” capital; it transforms the company’s governance, reporting obligations, employee equity framework, and strategic operating cadence.
Series A round sizes have grown materially over the past decade. The “seed extension” or “pre-Series A” round has emerged as a common intermediate step for companies that have raised meaningful seed capital but have not yet reached the metrics inflection point that institutional Series A leads require.
The Series A financing produces a comprehensive package of definitive documents (the “Series A documents”) that codify the new ownership and governance structure: Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation (authorizing the new Series A preferred class); Stock Purchase Agreement (SPA) (the share-issuance contract with representations, warranties, and closing conditions); Investors’ Rights Agreement (IRA) (registration rights, information rights, pre-emptive rights); Voting Agreement (board composition, drag-along); Right of First Refusal & Co-Sale Agreement (ROFR, tag-along); and Management Rights Letter (where required for VCOC qualification of the VC investor).
Key Series A economic and governance terms include: 1x non-participating liquidation preference as market standard; broad-based weighted average anti-dilution; pro-rata rights for major investors in future rounds; board composition (typically 5 seats: 2 common, 2 preferred, 1 independent); protective provisions (preferred veto rights over sale, charter amendments, debt above thresholds, increase in option pool, related-party transactions); information rights (monthly financials within 30 days, annual audited within 90 days); and founder vesting (re-vesting, often with credit for time served and double-trigger acceleration).
For Turkish founders, the Series A typically occurs after international VC interest crystallizes around a Delaware-incorporated holding company with a Turkish operating subsidiary. The financing produces parallel Turkish-side documentation (shareholder agreements, articles of association amendments) to align Turkish corporate structure with Delaware-level cap-table architecture.
In practice
Transactions Vircon Legal has announced with this structure (4 in total): Hop Health (2025), Hungri Games (2023), Juphy (2023), Tea Networks (2022).
Each was led by Managing Partner Erdem Mümtaz Hacıpaşaoğlu. All transactions →