Even though there is no real remedy, reps/warranties in purchase agreements are the way investors backstop their diligence and make sure people take the process seriously. Can you imagine VC's trying to tell their LP's they don't get reps/warranties and just invest off a subscription agreement because they decided reps were not necessary?

Ultimately, I believe the core issue is that the VC's are compelled to get overly creative and complicated among themselves as you move into later rounds. Complex liquidation waterfalls in Series B and later financings–with various combinations of participation rights, participation caps, cumulative dividends, etc.; who gets what price based anti-dilution (particularly in a difficult market where terms like a "full ratchet" make a comeback as no one is certain pricing is correct); drag-along rights issues, as well as control provisions and various types of blocking rights are what make financings hard. It is not the documents, it is the business deal that ends up making financings complicated. The problem is compounded by complex terms often leaving management feeling left out in the cold because they don't put money in so VC's seem to forget about them when putting in many of these terms–and management rarely has its own counsel in a typical later round VC financing.

Yokum's suggestion of a commonly understood standard is probably much more realistic. I'd like to suggest taking it in a slightly different direction.

When I was a leasing lawyer in NY (ummm, 15 years ago), there was a Blumberg standard form for office leases. Perhaps at first it was actually signed as is. In my time, the Blumberg form was used for smaller deals together with a rider developed by each law firm which overrode certain provisions or added to them. While the rider mechanism limited the benefits of the standard form, it certainly cut down on the time necessary for the other side to read and comment on the document.

The NVCA (or Techstar) documents could be used as an "initial form" right now. Issues of bias or overinclusion would be irrelevant.

Getting rid of some of the registration rights might get rid of a couple of pages. Deleting price-based anti-dilultion might save a couple of pages, but the rest of the structural anti-dilution needs to remain. Getting rid of some reps and warranties would save a few pages — but I don't think that reps are particularly difficult to read, as compared to, say, IRA indemnification provisions. Eliminating the RFR/Co-sale would eliminate an agreement, but most people never have substantive comments on a typical form anyway. Redemption rights aren't in most deals anyway, so I think there really isn't a savings there.

In any event, making venture financings easier to complete is a worthy goal.