If they're asking you to sign over your IP, the way I would interpret that is they are aware of the complications that arise when fundraising without having IP

If they're asking you to sign over your IP, the way I would interpret that is they are aware of the complications that arise when fundraising without having IP airtight. It's a question that every investor will ask, if not at first then certainly in diligence. If there's any possibility that your contributions were 'novel' (in the legal sense), then what's more relevant than how easily they could replace those contributions having seen how you solved the problem the first time is how core your contributions were to the product itself. If what you collectively have built depends on what you personally have built, and cannot function without it, and raising money is how your ex-cofounders plan to fund their operation, I would not want to be them. You can basically set your terms. On a final note, if this is the first paperwork you've seen, I'm curious as to what exactly the "termination certificate" purports to terminate. Edit: I am not a lawyer, but I have been around many early stage fallouts. If you'd like to talk to a lawyer, my friends at LawGives would probably love to help you out.