About Leva
Leva provide investment management services for two categories of investors:
If you are unsure whether you are a Deal Manager or a Private Investor:
Introduction to Working with Leva
Leva is a FundTech company developing technological solutions to
make fundraising easier, faster, and more efficient.
Leva’s Venture Syndicate Platform
Deal Managers can offer co-investment opportunities to their private network of investors leveraging Leva as a back-office tool to manage their deals across the entire fundraising and investing journey.
Leva have digitised the entire value chain, allowing Deal Managers to:
Co-investments
A co-investment is an investment made alongside a Deal Manager. The investment opportunity is sourced by the deal manager and shared with his/her/its co-investors.
Each co-investor independently decides whether he/she/it wants to participate in the opportunity or not: co-investments are considered individual investment decisions and are not advised by the Deal Manager.
Co-investments are passive investments in which co-investors follow a lead: deal terms are often pre-determined and not open to negotiation.
How Leva Works
No, Leva designed a simple partnership structure that allows the Deal Manager to keep pace with the fast-moving VC industry and set up different deals with a quick, automated, and digital solution.
While SPVs are costly and may take weeks to be set up, Leva’s pooling structure is costeffective and is instantly set up.
Compared to other pooling vehicles, such as SPVs, Leva’s venture syndicate has many advantages:
– No need to incorporate a legal entity
– No formal accounting needed
– Faster and digital set up
– Easy follow-on round management
Venture syndicates are usually set up by business angels and/or founders to pool smaller investors in a fundraising round, by Deal Managers to monetise their deal flow offering coinvestment opportunities to their network, or by VC funds to leverage pro rata rights offering co-investment opportunities to their LPs.
Furthermore, founders can leverage the venture syndicate structure to pool some of their existing shareholders and consolidate their cap table before a financing round.
(e.g. Shareholders' Agreement, Investment Agreement, Convertible Loan Agreement, etc.)
The Deal Manager signs the investment documents on the account of the syndicate.
The target company's shares are held by the Deal Manager on the account of the syndicate. Co-investors are assured of their economical rights through the simple partnership ("Terms of Syndicate").
The share ledger shows only one entry per venture syndicate. The entry is made in the name of the deal manager. The Terms of Syndicate determines the distribution of economics rights among all syndicate members.
This is how Leva stores and handles the data:
– Leva stores all data in Switzerland, on servers of a Swiss cloud service provider.
– Any personal data collected by Leva is contained behind secured networks and is only accessible by a limited number of employees who have special access rights to such systems and are bound by obligations of confidentiality.
Please read Leva’s Privacy Policy and Leva’s Cookie Policy:
Taxes and Regulations
Leva is a member of the self-regulatory organisation (SRO) Verein für Qualitätssicherung von Finanzdienstleistungen (VQF), which is officially recognised, regulated, and supervised by FINMA, which is why the SRO is referred to as controlled self-regulation.
No, the simple partnership is not incorporated and has no legal personality. The simple partnership is governed by the Terms of Syndicate, the legal agreement defining the rules of the partnership between the investors and the deal manager (it is similar to a shareholders’ agreement).
No, Leva’s simple partnership can pool an unlimited number of investors.
For Switzerland, Leva received a cantonal tax ruling, confirming that the simple partnership is not a taxable subject. Therefore, the tax status of the investors is not changed by being part of the partnership. Merely investing in a simple partnership does not automatically make a foreign investor a tax subject in Switzerland.
For more information, please refer to Leva’s detailed Taxation FAQs:
Since Leva is not a member of the syndicate, the simple partnership is safe, even if Leva ceases to exist.
Yes, all investment contracts generated by Leva are enforceable by Swiss law just like any other contract.
Currently, Leva supports transactions in Swiss Francs, Euros, British Pounds, and U.S. Dollars.
Who can use Leva?
Any legal entity or individual person, who has reached legal maturity. Furthermore, the deal manager shall not be incapacitated, overindebted, insolvent or bankrupt.
From a Swiss perspective and provided that the KYC/AML checks were approved, Leva can onboard anyone except Deal Managers and Private Investors with a U.S. Person-Status (for details, you should consult the IRS website: http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc851.html), Afghanistan, Burundi, Central African Republic, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, State of Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, Laos, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Myanmar, Korea (North Korea), Palestine State, Pakistan, and Somalia.
Nevertheless, it is up to the Deal Manager to verify if there are any additional restrictions based on the jurisdiction in which the target company, the investors, or the Deal Manager himself/herself/itself are based.
From a Swiss perspective, non-qualified investors can participate in deals on Leva. Nevertheless, it is up to the deal manager to verify if there are any additional restrictions based on the jurisdiction in which the target company or the investors are based.