Emerging Companies & Venture Capital

Recent Transactions

Sullivan lawyers use sound business judgment to counsel emerging companies on a full range of business and legal issues. We balance business needs and legal realities to help growing companies thrive. We know that our clients are gauging opportunities and confronting challenges and seek our assistance in connection with protecting valuable intellectual property, securing equity and debt financing, negotiating technology licenses and joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, crafting tax and deferred compensation strategies, resolving employment issues and responding to the threat of litigation. We understand the opportunities our clients need to take advantage of and provide quality, cost-effective solutions that help emerging companies cope with the human and financial challenges of rapid growth.

We represent regional, national and international venture capital firms and other investors that invest in early-stage companies across a range of industries, most notably in software, digital health, blockchain, fintech, communications, therapeutics, medical devices and energy sectors. We help venture capital investment professionals deal with the many contingencies that arise in transactions such as portfolio investments, liquidity events, corporate governance and compliance matters, intellectual property and other due diligence-review services. We also work with venture capital firms on fund formation and fund-raising efforts, and regularly advise institutions making investments in venture capital funds.

A key strength is our ability to facilitate introductions between investors and entrepreneurs and emerging companies, particularly in technology sector companies located in Ireland and Israel.

Recent Client Work:

Emerging Companies

• Represented a privately held fiber optics and wireless communication sub-component manufacturer when it was acquired by a publicly traded company for $77 million
• Represented a privately held communications company when it was acquired by a publicly traded corporation for aggregate consideration of $175 million
• Secured complex source code cross-licensing arrangements for a developer of software used in the commercial real estate market
• Represented an Australian engineering software development company in a dispute concerning the theft of confidential, proprietary and trade secret information
• Facilitated a telecommunications company's IPO and counseled on other offerings of equity and debt securities valued at more than $5 billion
• Helped an Israeli smart-card technology company successfully challenge a government award decision in the Electronic Passport program
• Provided international and domestic tax counsel to the leading global developer of product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions
• Represented venture-backed parallel file system software company in financing rounds totaling more than $30 million and in negotiating multi-million dollar OEM, licensing and distribution transactions
• Represented software company in the multi-million dollar sale of its U.S., Irish and U.K. assets and shares to a publicly traded Israeli company
• Represented developer of polymer photovoltaic products in its $18 million Series C round of financing
• Represented a leading provider of AI-driven SaaS solutions for planning and merchandising within the retail industry, in an $11m growth financing

Venture Capital

• Represented a Massachusetts-focused seed and early-stage venture firm in numerous portfolio company investments in the software, communications, life sciences and material sciences sectors
• Assisted major financial services firm in strategic venture investments of more than $225 million in international telecommunications companies
• Represented a group of venture capital investors in financing rounds aggregating $21.5 million in early-stage funding for a medical technology company developing an innovative, percutaneous approach for delivering heart valves to treat late-stage aortic stenosis
• Represented a leading venture capital fund with more than $1.6 billion in committed capital under management; facilitated the fund's first "going-private" transaction with a publicly traded enterprise
• Represented a venture capital firm in connection with due diligence analyses related to a number of medical device technologies, including spinal implants, ocular lens implants, vascular grafts, aortic valve replacements and cardiac ablation devices
• Represented a syndicate of life sciences venture capital firms in a series of multi-million dollar bridge financings followed by a $4.4 million financing round and recapitalization for a developer of disposable catheter products for the treatment of cardiovascular disorders using laser energy