Windward Navigator · Founder & advisor set
Move the code, designs, brand, and ideas a founder built before formation into the company — so the company, not the individual, owns what investors and acquirers will diligence — with a continuing assignment for what the founder builds next.
Assigns the code, designs, brand, domains, data, and ideas a founder created before formation to the company, with a continuing assignment for what the founder builds next, representations about prior employers and third-party rights, moral-rights waiver, further-assurances and power-of-attorney mechanics, and schedules for what is assigned and what is excluded.
A founder built something before the company existed, or will keep building after. Investors and acquirers ask for this document first; missing assignments are the most common diligence problem in early-stage deals.
The person is an employee or contractor rather than a founder (use the contractor agreement or an employee invention-assignment agreement), or the IP was created under a prior employer's resources — that needs counsel before anything is signed.
The company's and founder's details, a specific list of what is being assigned (repositories, names, domains, documents), anything the founder keeps, and what the founder receives in exchange — usually the founder's equity.
Because then the company owns nothing an investor or acquirer can buy, and every license back is a negotiation. Investors will insist on an assignment at the first financing; doing it at formation avoids a tax and valuation problem later.
Disclose it in the agreement and have counsel review the former employer's invention-assignment and confidentiality agreements before the company relies on that IP. The form flags this but cannot resolve it.
Yes — an assignment needs consideration to be enforceable as a contract. For a founder, the founder's equity issued at or around formation is the usual consideration; the form also supports cash or nominal consideration.
Windward Navigator documents and guides are general information and general forms for Texas businesses, not legal advice about your company, and no attorney reviews your answers unless you engage the firm. Using Navigator does not create an attorney–client relationship. Attorney advertising.
