Business Partnership Proposal Template

For a contemplated Partnership, Strategic Alliance or Joint Venture (JV) between [COMPANY A] (or “COMPANY A”), [COMPANY B] (or “COMPANY B”).

Submitted by: COMPANY B

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This proposal contains the proprietary information of [COMPANY B] and shall not be shared outside of the above named parties.

This sample business partnership proposal is a preliminary proposal with a specific partnership in mind. Feel free to customize to suit your needs.

Background.

[COMPANY B] met with COMPANY A and COMPANY C and shared with them its plans related to [DESCRIBE THE BUSINESS VENTURE].

[COMPANY B] possesses rare insights and expertise necessary to develop systems and applications related to the above, while COMPANY A has the resources needed to develop such systems and applications.  

The parties believe there may be mutual benefit in forming a business partnership or strategic alliance and pooling their resources and assets in order to pursue the objectives below.

Objectives of the parties.

It’s important to show that you understand the objectives and that both parties are aligned in terms of what those objectives are.

Catalog Management –

• A DIY web-based platform wherein… (COMPANY A & COMPANY B)
• A more sophisticated application for comprehensive project-based catalog management services (COMPANY B)

Data & Analytics –

• A web-based data and analytics platform that will give… (COMPANY A & COMPANY B)

Contributions & responsibilities of the parties.

In a partnership, it’s imperative that you show what each party’s contributions and responsibilities will be. In this business partnership proposal template, Company B is a startup business that has certain ideas and intellectual property while Company A has the means to bring those ideas to life with capital and human resources.

COMPANY B owns intellectual property, including, but not limited to, plans, methods and processes needed for the development of the systems and applications contemplated above.

COMPANY A brings capital/resources and marketing and business development expertise as well as expertise in hosting and managing online subscription-based platforms. NOTE: the arrangement could be set up where funding is sought from outside COMPANY A.

The below table shows each parties’ anticipated contributions during the development and execution phases of any strategic alliance or partnership that may be entered into.

Rights in Developed Software & Services.

Ownership of jointly developed or funded intellectual property (IP) can be contentious, so it’s important to set expectations early on in the process.

The following depends on legal structure of the arrangement. The below assumes a strategic alliance will be formed.

Legal considerations.

This potential alliance or partnership could take a number of forms.  Given the complexities, a strategic alliance agreement may make the most sense, but we need to clarify a number of items for that kind of agreement (e.g. revenue/profit splits or royalty payments).  A JV could be construed as a partnership and if a JV is desired, it may make sense to set the JV up as an LLC for liability reasons.  This could get complicated.

Revenue or profit splits / royalties.

A discussion around revenue share, profit share or royalties is dependent on the legal considerations above.  We will leave this TBD for now.

AGREED BY THE PARTIES:

___________________________                 ______________

[COMPANY A REP]

[COMPANY A]

___________________________                 ______________

[COMPANY B REP]

[COMPANY B]