You innovate. We do too.

From initial idea to opening bell—and every step in between—our Emerging Growth & Venture Capital team has experience in handling the challenges start-up companies may face along the way. We know you need a legal team that understands where you are and where you want to go. We are the team that recognizes the pressures of the market and the innovation and initiative that brought you to this point. We work closely with emerging growth companies, as well as with angel investors and venture capital firms that help finance the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

We assist start-ups across their life cycle, from business formation issues to mergers and acquisitions. We also counsel on the capital-raising process, including private placements such as angel and venture round financing, mergers and acquisitions; and additional business, tax, and accounting issues, along with risk management and intellectual property protection. We regularly advise private equity, venture capital, and angel investors in performing proper and extensive legal and financial due diligence of portfolio company acquisition and investment opportunities.

When you work with Woods Rogers Vandeventer Black (WRVB), you’re working with one of the largest groups of Emerging Growth attorneys at a Virginia-based law firm. Our team has been on the inside and we know firsthand the demands entrepreneurs face. We also know what it is like to manage a growing company. Four of the team’s attorneys—Fourd Kemper, Brian Brown, Corey Davis, and Autumn Visser—bring prior experience as in-house general counsel to their work. In addition, prior to joining WRVB, Corey Davis was a successful entrepreneur who created a rapid-growth company, raised capital, and successfully exited the venture.

Our experience combines deep understanding of our client’s business and a shared entrepreneurial spirit. We thrive on connecting our knowledge with resources and scale to see emerging growth companies, partners, investors, and the VC communities succeed together.

We have advised emerging growth companies in the following spaces:

  • Biotechnology
  • Computer hardware and software
  • Fiber optics
  • Marine and Life Sciences
  • Micro-electronics
  • Online Education
  • Renewable Energy
  • Breweries, wineries, and distilleries

Our lead representation of private equity and venture capital funds and fund sponsors, managers, and investment advisers includes:

  • Turn-key structuring of fund formations (including management company structuring)
  • Structuring of single-asset funds
  • Formation of parallel investment vehicles and structuring of employee co-investment funds
  • Fund marketing
  • RIA compliance
  • Joint ventures
  • Thorough knowledge of general organizational matters—along with negotiating terms and side letters with prospective investors and closing subscriptions, we also work on offerings, investments, acquisitions, dispositions, and divestitures for portfolio companies and other fund investments and financings
  • Counseling on all phases of the life cycle, from start-up and formation to market fit, to pre-venture guidance, IP protection, scale, maturity, and finally, exit strategies

Our experience also includes:

  • Representing regionally focused venture capital firms
  • Representing industrial companies making venture capital investments
  • Representing undergraduate and graduate students in starting a company and obtaining angel financing
  • Assisting angel investment groups with corporate and IP due diligence matters
  • Representing an online education start-up in structuring and negotiating its sale to a leading private equity fund

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