Emerging Growth and Venture Capital

Starting and growing a company is an exhilarating journey filled with challenges and opportunities. At Snell & Wilmer, we understand the unique demands and complexities faced by entrepreneurs in this dynamic environment, and are dedicated to navigating them with you. Our Emerging Growth and Venture Capital (EGVC) team is dedicated to guiding you through every stage of your business journey, from inception to growth and beyond. We don’t just translate complex legal jargon; you require a lawyer not only adept at translating complex legal concepts into client-friendly recommendations, but who also helps identify the paths that will best advance your business interests and create long term shareholder value.

Snell & Wilmer helps drive your business forward, at every stage of your journey. Whether you’re just laying the groundwork for a startup or managing the growth of a more established company, we offer tailored legal solutions to meet your needs. Our EGVC team is passionate about serving companies at all stages of development. Whether you are a newly formed company building its framework, a seed-stage company contemplating private capital for the first time, negotiating your first venture capital investment or an M&A exit, our approach is uniform. We anticipate your needs and respond in a proactive, competent, and responsive manner, with a sense of urgency that reflects the value Snell & Wilmer places on client relationships, seamless client experiences and a commitment to your success.

Our team-based, multidisciplinary approach to providing clients with exceptional service and comprehensive legal solutions integrates experience from our corporate and securities, intellectual property, labor and employment, data privacy, tax, executive compensation, real estate, and environmental lawyers located across our sixteen offices.

For Emerging Companies:

For emerging companies, we take pride in supporting the entrepreneurial spirit of a startup by addressing your legal needs at this stage. Our goal is to provide a seamless, responsive service that aligns with your short and longer term business objectives, including:

• Entity selection and formation: Setting up the right fundable structure from the start
• Pie splitting among founders: helping to ensure an appropriate equity distribution among founders and early employees
• Employee Incentives: Designing effective stock option plans and other incentive programs
• Financing and Fundraising: Guiding companies through multiple rounds of equity and debt financing, from friends and family, angel, seed and venture capital rounds to initial public offerings (IPOs)
• Intellectual Property: Securing patents, trademarks, and copyrights to safeguard your innovations
• Corporate governance: Ensuring that corporate formalities are institutionalized from the start
• Confidentiality, invention assignment, non-competition, non-solicitation, and customer agreements: Ensuring essential agreements to protect the company are in place from the start
• Labor and employment advising: Helping to ensure awareness and adherence to the intricacies of labor laws
• Regulatory and Compliance: Helping to ensure adherence to legal standards and data and privacy protection laws

For Growth Stage Companies:

As a business matures, our attorneys have the capability to support venture-funded and late-stage companies’ growth and evolving business objectives. We lead companies through:

• Data protection and cyber security matters
• Technology transfer and licensing
• Strategic alliances
• Supplier and manufacturing agreements
• Intellectual property protection (including patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets)
• Regulatory compliance
• Federal, state, and local tax issues
• Immigration services
• Private debt and equity financing (including friends/family, angel, venture capital, and private equity)
• Franchising
• Initial public offerings (IPO)
• Going-private transactions
• Mergers, acquisitions, and dispositions (including buy and sell side deals, as well as negotiated and auction deals)
• Employee incentive programs (including stock options, restricted stock/units and phantom stock/units, and liquidity bonus plans)
• Joint ventures and strategic alliances
• Shareholder/owner buyouts and dispute resolution
• Corporate asset protection and succession planning

We proudly support a diverse range of emerging companies in all market sectors, including Internet, software, artificial intelligence, social media, information technology, telecommunications, clean technology, healthcare, medical device, medtech, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, business, consumer products and services, retail and franchising, media and entertainment, financial services, education, manufacturing, and real estate development.

Unwavering Commitment to Entrepreneurs: Our team is more than just a legal service provider; we are passionate advocates for the entrepreneurial community and ecosystem and are deeply invested in your success. We don’t just offer legal advice — we actively mentor startups, help form angel groups and venture funds, and engage with leading academic institutions, incubators/accelerators, and industry groups.

Hands-On Business Experience: Certain members of our emerging companies and venture capital group have started, operated, and/or participated in their own businesses, giving them a unique perspective and genuine empathy for the challenges you face. They speak the language and genuinely understand the time, commitment, and sacrifice required to start and grow a company or portfolio. This real-world experience allows us to deliver legal solutions that are not only legally sound but also strategically aligned with your business goals and objectives.

Powerful Network and Strategic Connections: Emerging companies require a myriad of resources to succeed, and success in the startup world often hinges on the right connections. Over the years, we’ve built a vast, national and international network of investors, industry experts, and seasoned executives. We leverage these relationships to provide you with invaluable opportunities and resources, helping you find the right partners, advisors, and investors to accelerate your growth. Whether there is a need for an investor, seasoned executive, industry expert, or product developer, we can help make that critical connection.

READY TO TAKE YOUR BUSINESS TO THE NEXT LEVEL?
At Snell & Wilmer, we are committed to helping you navigate the complexities of the startup landscape and empowering your entrepreneurial vision. Choose us as an advisor who understands your journey, provides actionable insights, and connects you with a network that can help drive your vision forward. Contact us to see how our Emerging Growth and Venture Capital team can support your journey, and let’s build the future together.