With our substantial experience on both sides of the venture landscape, we provide comprehensive counsel to venture capital funds, incubators, angel investors, start-up founders and early and growth-stage companies.
Our experience and contacts enable us to play a strategic role in connecting companies with financing sources and strategic corporate partners. We handle both equity and debt investments in private companies at all stages of development, from seed capital through later the stages leading to an initial public offering or other liquidity event, and in a variety of industries including software, retail, information processing, healthcare, Internet, and new media. These services are more of an art than a science. We believe that few firms are truly qualified to provide effective assistance that integrates both the legal and business sides of this process.
On the investor/fund manager side, our services include:
- Advising on business entity selection, whether limited partnership, limited liability company, series LLC, or other form.
- Due diligence and representation in connection with investment in portfolio companies.
- Counseling on fund structure, strategy descriptions and parameters, compensation provisions, liquidity provisions, hurdle rates and valuation procedures, and a variety of other fund terms.
- Advising on the optimal tax structure of the fund, in consultation with tax counsel if needed.
- Preparing term sheets, limited partnership agreements, private placement memoranda, subscription documents, management company operating agreements, and investment advisory contracts.
- Representing fund clients in connection with investments in portfolio companies.
- Collaborating with fund managers to formulate investment goals and investment strategy description.
- Preparing SEC Form D and state “blue sky” filings on an on-going basis.
- Implementing exit strategies.
- Facilitating introductions to administrators, auditors, brokers, and marketers specializing in illiquid investments.
The services we offer to growth-stage companies include:
- Implementing investor friendly company structures, documenting all important business relationships and assuring valid legal protection of all intellectual property rights.
- Representing clients in capital raising starting with friends and family and angel round financings and leading to later stage investments by professional venture capital firms and other investment professionals.
- Preparation of written business plans that present clients’ entrepreneurial ideas in formats that appeal to the investment community and stimulate investor interest.
- Negotiating with investors to achieve the best available transaction structure and financing terms.
- Introducing, evaluating and implementing strategic growth relationships, all with a goal of helping clients succeed.
- Development of avenues of liquidity for the owners and early stage investors and ongoing efforts to increase company valuation.