Professional Background
I lead Manatt’s financial services group and represent public and private corporations in a wide range of corporate matters. Over the past 25 years, I have led countless transactions, including mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and public and private equity and debt securities offerings. I regularly represent venture capital funds in portfolio investments, capital raises and strategic transactions.
I also counsel financial institutions and the underwriters and placement agents that service them on securities offerings, branch purchases and sales, and whole bank acquisitions, along with day-to-day corporate governance issues and periodic reporting.
As a frequent publisher and lecturer, I served as an adjunct assistant professor at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, where I taught corporations law.
Representative Experience With Emerging Companies
- Iron Pillar, a Mumbai-based venture capital firm, as U.S. counsel in its $4 million investment in Seattle-based software-as-a-service startup CoreStack and in its $22 million preferred financing of Vyome Therapeutics, Inc.
- Mitsui & Co. (U.S.A.), Inc., the Japanese parent company of Mitsui USA, in its preferred financing of Pipeline RX, LLC.
- New Atlantic Ventures, a venture fund that invests in seed and early-stage tech companies, in its seed-stage financing of Atlas Obscura.
- Runa Capital, a tech-focused venture capital firm, in preferred financings of Procurify Technologies and Zipdrug, Inc., and in a Series A financing of Oxygen, Inc.
- Varo Money, Inc., a mobile banking startup, in closing a $45 million Series B funding round led by existing investor Warburg Pincus and The Rise Fund, a global impact fund.
Areas of Focus
- Industries: Financial services, technology
- Venture capital financings
- Capital markets
- Corporate
- M&A
My Advice to Entrepreneurs
- Don’t take shortcuts to get to the end goal.
- Partner with those you get along with, not with those who just may be impressive to others.
- Share the passion for your product with your strategic advisors.