Advising clients on all aspects of business opportunities

Foley Hoag offers our venture capital and emerging company clients highly experienced, issue-focused counsel, which is integrated with our full-service practice. Our lawyers, working with other members of our firm, can provide you with assistance for all of your matters, even if they reach beyond traditional venture capital and emerging company issues.

Venture Capital

Each year we represent our venture capital investor clients in a large number of financing transactions, from small seed-rounds to much larger later-stage investments. We offer our clients extensive experience with the types of issues likely to arise in these transactions; and we offer innovative advice on corporate and securities law, as well as other aspects of these transactions.

In addition, we advise our venture investor clients on many other matters relating to their investments, including:

  • Protection of intellectual property
  • Employment issues
  • Duties of investor-appointed directors
  • Issues related to the sale or other disposition of portfolio companies

Emerging Companies

For our emerging company clients, we serve as counsel in many industries, including technology and life sciences. Our lawyers have the experience necessary to address—with skill, speed and efficiency—the full range of issues faced by our clients companies. We are intimately familiar with the expectations of venture investors and the documentation of venture investments. Additionally, we work with our clients on such matters as the protection and acquisition of intellectual property, equity incentive plans, employment law, domestic and international distribution and licensing, securities law, mergers and acquisitions and public offerings.

Our extensive contacts among both venture investors and emerging companies permit us to provide substantial benefits to our clients beyond our basic legal services. This includes contacts and introductions or simply providing intelligence regarding how the “other side” thinks. For all of our clients, we take a practical attitude and strive to provide the highest quality services on a timely and efficient basis.

Fund Formation

Our practice also includes helping our clients with the formation of all types of private equity funds, including venture capital funds, small business investment companies (SBICs), alternative investment funds and hedge funds. We are well versed in the ERISA, tax and securities law issues related to the structuring and placement of private equity funds.

Cross-Border Investing

A large number of our venture capital clients’ transactions involve non-U.S. parties. In those cases, we can help steer your transactions around the obstacles that can arise. In short, we make sure that when companies and investors want to come together across national borders, nothing gets in the way.

Intellectual Property

With more than 40 members, including more than a dozen PhD scientists and registered patent lawyers, we have one of the largest and most sophisticated intellectual property practices in the United States. This allows us to provide uniquely valuable services to investors and growing companies, who rely on us for advice in evaluating, acquiring and protecting intellectual property in information technology, biotechnology, software, telecommunications, computer hardware and other industries.

Our services are particularly useful to investors who are contemplating investing in a company, but want to have an experienced professional "look under the hood" and examine the company's patents, licenses and other intellectual property assets before they invest. We also help entrepreneurs looking to protect and capitalize on the products of their creative energies.

Foley Hoag’s lawyers have extensive in-depth knowledge of our clients’ industries, in addition to our experience in corporate organization and governance, intellectual property protection and strategy, and financing and deals. Many of our lawyers are former scientists, engineers, researchers, physicians, political advisors, and in-house counsel to technology, life sciences and telecommunications companies. They are also active in professional associations dedicated to serving knowledge-dependent industries.

In every matter, we strive to understand each client’s unique business goals and challenges, so we can apply our experience in the most valuable and appropriate way. Our broad network among venture investors and angel funds, as well as financial institutions, positions us to provide invaluable introductions and contacts.

Incorporating and Starting Up

Our emerging company clients in technology, life sciences, and other industries benefit from our deep understanding of the issues facing new businesses. We help startups choose business and capital formation structures that make sense both now and for their future capital needs and growth plans. We also assist clients who need offshore or international resources for financing, labor or customer markets.

Financing

Dynamic companies need financing to turn ideas into practical, revenue-generating business applications. With our extensive experience representing banks, private investment funds and venture capital groups, our lawyers speak the language of lenders and investors and know what it takes to secure funding for your ventures. We also have a substantial and growing practice in representing small business investment companies (SBICs) and private equity funds that seek out emerging enterprises for investment purposes.

Employment

For clients who are growing their businesses and adding staff, we provide comprehensive employment-related advice to help attract, compensate and retain employees. We also provide strategic consulting on every aspect of personnel management—from complying with the myriad of statutory requirements to structuring employee benefits.

Mergers & Acquisitions

Some of our emerging company clients are seeking acquisitions, in order to increase their rapid growth or are seeking to be acquired as part of their exit strategy. We provide these companies with the strategic advice and necessary legal work to accomplish their goals. Our lawyers have successfully guided clients through purchases and sales of public and private corporations, asset sales, divisional and product-line acquisitions and divestitures, management buyouts, corporate restructurings and leveraged acquisitions and financings.

Litigation

Our trial lawyers are particularly adept at handling legal cases that can affect our emerging company clients, notably in the areas of employment, intellectual property and commercial litigation. Our lawyers are known for producing results at trial, as well as providing services aimed at preventing and resolving disputes, including preventive counseling. We help our clients weigh their full-range of options, including alternative dispute resolution or arbitration.

Licensing

Emerging enterprises often benefit from, or depend upon, revenue streams generated by the development of successful technology transfer and licensing programs. Foley Hoag lawyers handle numerous such transactions for our clients each year, ranging from straightforward software license agreements to complex multi-party international joint ventures. We have successfully concluded transactions involving software, Internet, computer hardware, manufacturing, life science and medical device-related technologies.

Links

National Venture Capital Association
http://www.nvca.org/

PricewaterhouseCoopers/Thomson Venture Economics/National Venture Capital Association MoneyTree Survey
http://www.pwcmoneytree.com/