Terms and Conditions - SeedLegals Startup Awards 2025
I. Terms and Conditions of Entry
By submitting a competition entry to the SeedLegals Startup Awards 2025 (the “Awards”), as organised by SeedLegals Ltd (“SeedLegals”, “we”), you are agreeing to be bound by these terms and conditions and declare that all facts and figures contained within your entry submission are accurate and true, and that permission to enter has been given by all necessary parties.
1. Nomination Opening and Closing Dates
1.1. The SeedLegals Startup Awards will accept nominations for the published award categories from the 16th of October 2024, until the 13th of December 2024 (“Closing Date”), at which time nominations for all categories will close.
1.2. All Awards entries must be received by SeedLegals by no later than 11:59pm on the Closing Date in order to be considered for the SeedLegals Startup Awards. All Awards entries received after the Closing Date will be automatically disqualified.
2. Responsibility for Awards Entries
2.1. SeedLegals will not bear responsibility for Awards entries that are lost, mislaid, damaged or delayed, regardless of cause, including, for example, as a result of any equipment failure, technical malfunction, systems, satellite, network, server, computer hardware or software failure of any kind.
2.2. You must ensure you read the criteria for the Awards category which you are entering. Where relevant, SeedLegals encourages you to use evidence such as quotes, figures, statistics and include as much information as possible on your application.
2.3. SeedLegals reserves the right to extend the closing deadline, amend categories or not award categories should the standard of entries received not reach the required standard at SeedLegals’ sole discretion.
2.4. If you or your company are nominated by a third party, SeedLegals will subsequently contact you to confirm that you are willing to be considered for the Awards, and will request you provide further details in order to complete your entry.
3. Eligibility
3.1. The Awards are only open to:
i. UK or Irish registered companies (where you are entering the Awards on behalf of a company);
ii. UK or Irish residents aged 18 years or over (where you are entering the Awards as a founder);
iii. Angel investors aged 18 years or over (where you are entering the Awards as an angel investor).
3.2. Entering into the Awards competition is prohibited to:
i. employees of SeedLegals or its subsidiary companies;
ii. employees of agents or suppliers of SeedLegals or its subsidiary companies, who are professionally connected with the Awards or their administration;
iii. judges who have been selected by SeedLegals to assess Awards entries;
iv. members of the immediate families or households of (i), (ii) and (iii) above.
3.3. SeedLegals may require you to provide proof that you are eligible to enter the Awards, including but not limited to providing documents to prove your trading status, residency, age or registration of the business. If a winner is found to be ineligible, SeedLegals will award the prize to another entrant.
3.4. SeedLegals reserves all rights to disqualify you if your conduct is contrary to these terms and conditions or the spirit of these Awards.
4. Announcement of Winners
4.1. The winners for each category of the Awards will be decided on the basis of the assessment of a panel of judges and will be announced at the Awards event held on 14 May 2025.
4.2. The judges’ decision is final, and no correspondence or discussion will be entered into or feedback given regarding the selection of shortlisted nominations or winners.
4.3. The judges’ decision will be final and not subject to appeals.
4.4. In case the winner of any Awards category is unable to attend the Awards event on 14 May 2025, we’ll award them in their absence and inform the respective winner by email and/or telephone thereafter.
5. Startup of the Year Award & Equity Investment
5.1 After finalists are selected for each respective category, the Startup of the Year Award will be awarded to one company selected by SeedLegals in its sole discretion out of all finalists across all categories (the “SYA Winner”), and will be announced at the Awards event held on 14 May 2025.
5.2 No preexisting relationship or business interaction between the finalists and SeedLegals (including but not limited to any finalist’s purchase history or previous partnerships with SeedLegals) will be taken into account by SeedLegals in selecting the SYA Winner.
5.3 The SYA Winner will be eligible to be considered to receive an equity investment of £50,000 (the “Equity Investment”) from one or more angel investor announced at the Awards event (the “Angels”), subject to the following conditions:
(i) that the investee company satisfies all investment criteria set by the Angels in their sole discretion;
(ii) that the investee company passes all due diligence checks to a satisfactory standard as determined by the Angels in their sole discretion;
(iii) that the investee company and the Angels agree on mutually satisfactory terms for the investment.
5.4 In the event that any of the conditions set out in clause 5.3 above are not met, the Equity Investment will not be completed. Under no circumstances will SeedLegals or the Angels be held liable by the SYA Winner for the decision to not complete the Equity Investment.
5.5 SeedLegals will offer no investment advice or assistance to the Angels on the merits, investment criteria or execution of the Equity Investment, and the Angels shall at all times act in their personal capacity as angel investors and shall not be deemed to represent SeedLegals when entering discussions, negotiating and/or completing the Equity Investment with the SYA Winner.
5.6 If the terms of an Equity Investment are agreed upon between the Angels and the SYA Winner, SeedLegals does not endorse such terms nor makes any representations as to their adequacy or appropriateness for the SYA Winner.
5.7 The SYA Winner shall not be required to use the SeedLegals platform to generate the legal documentation and complete the Equity Investment, but may choose to do so at their sole discretion.
5.8 If the SYA Winner decides to use the SeedLegals platform to complete the Equity Investment, the services SeedLegals will provide in this respect will be limited to technical platform functionality and automated generation of the legal documentation for the Equity Investment on the basis of the terms selected by the SYA Winner. For the avoidance of doubt, SeedLegals and its employees will at no point advise on the Equity Investment terms, the degree to which they are market standard, or their appropriateness for the SYA Winner.
6. Event Tickets
6.1. All Award entrants will be required to purchase a standard ticket if they wish to attend the Awards event on 14 May 2025, subject to the prices described on the Awards website.
6.2 All tickets purchased for the Awards event on the 14 May 2025 will be non-refundable.
7. Intellectual Property Rights
7.1 You agree that SeedLegals may make your entry available on its website and in any other media, and in connection with any publicity of the Awards, and you agree that SeedLegals may use your company name, logo and publicly available details and photographs in SeedLegals promotional content and/or on our website and social media.
7.2. You agree to grant SeedLegals a non-exclusive, worldwide, irrevocable licence, for the full period of any intellectual property rights in the Awards entry and any accompanying materials, to use, display, publish, transmit, copy, edit, alter, store and re-format the Awards entry as well as any company details or logos you provide as part of your application.
8. Liability
8.1. Insofar as is permitted by law, SeedLegals, its agents or distributors will not in any circumstances be responsible or liable to compensate you or accept any liability for any loss or damage occurring as a result of your entry in the Awards or as a result of the judges’ decisions as regards the shortlisted entrants or winners.
8.2. We reserve our right to claim damages (whether in contract, equity or otherwise) for any liability incurred by us from your breach of these terms and conditions.
9. Data Protection
9.1. SeedLegals will only process your personal information in the manner set out in our Privacy Policy and in these terms.
9.2. By entering or nominating someone into the SeedLegals Startup Awards, you consent to receive information from SeedLegals. You can unsubscribe anytime. View our privacy policy.
10. General
10.1. SeedLegals reserves the right to hold void, suspend, cancel, or amend the Awards and any related prizes where it becomes necessary to do so.
10.2. If there is any conflict between information set out in promotional content and these terms, these terms shall take precedence.
10.3. These terms and conditions are governed by the laws of England and Wales, and any disputes pertaining to these Awards or these terms will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.
Please contact us at startupawards@seedlegals.com if you have any questions or wish to withdraw an Awards entry.
II. Judging Rules and Guidelines
1. Judges will not allow personal relationships or experiences to influence judging marks or decisions and their judging will be impartial and based on the standard of entry set by SeedLegals and criteria supplied to them.
2. Judges will declare any perceived conflict of interest to SeedLegals ahead of assessing any entries.
3. All judging discussions are confidential and will not be shared or discussed with anyone outside of the judging panel ahead of the Awards event or thereafter.
4. Judges will not share confidential material, judging papers or entries with anyone. Judges will securely delete all judging materials immediately after the judging period or return materials to the SeedLegals team to manage their disposal.
5. Judges will not notify any entrants that they have won or that they are shortlisted ahead of the official SeedLegals announcements.
6. Should a judge break any of the rules of conduct, they will be asked to leave the panel and not invited to judge any future awards.
III. Terms and Conditions – Attendance at the Awards & Information Sharing
By attending the Awards event held by SeedLegals on 14 May 2025, you agree that subsequent to your attendance at the Awards event your name and email may be shared by SeedLegals with the sponsors of the Awards, as listed on the Sponsors page.