Start-ups & Emerging Companies
Early-stage companies throughout Massachusetts, the region and beyond seek our team’s help at every stage of corporate development and across a wide range of industries, both tech and non-tech. The members of our Start-ups & Emerging Companies industry group advise and represent clients from concept, business planning, organization and financing through to cultivating a team, and protecting intellectual property.
Clients turn to us to help resolve difficult disputes and litigation, handle sophisticated transactions and advise on complex regulatory issues, including:
- Angel and venture capital financings and fund formation, management and raising capital
- Biotech deals
- Licensing agreements and other complex business contracts
- Mergers and acquisitions, combinations, structured financing and tax credits
- Restructuring
- Real estate investments, permitting and construction
- Energy, environmental and land use requirements and regulatory compliance
- Strategic collaborations, public finance, project finance and government incentives
Our clients comprise private businesses of all sizes as well as public companies, Fortune 100 corporations, financial institutions, institutes of higher education, energy utilities, nonprofit and quasi-public entities and healthcare providers focusing on the cutting-edge innovations that help grow our economy. Our team’s members collaborate with clients to create and provide comprehensive and cost-effective solutions for early-stage enterprises, investment funds and business management.
As corporate counsel, we help our start-up clients navigate the opportunities and challenges of formation, financing, market entry and regulatory requirements. We also introduce them to our network of VCs, angel investors, bankers, financiers, investors, industrialists and other service providers.
Start-ups and early-growth entities know us as their peers. We are active members of The Venture Forum, the Worcester CleanTech Incubator, and other preeminent organizations supporting thought leadership and incubation for emerging companies.
Changes in formation and strategic partnering for a tech company
The founders of a mobile application had initially set up a German entity to hold the intellectual property for an invention that recognizes consumer products on a television screen or other visual medium and directs the consumer to websites where the products can be purchased. We helped the company set up a Delaware corporation to become the parent entity and negotiated strategic partnering arrangements with German and Swiss media companies. With our help, the company is currently raising $6 million in a Series A financing.
Growing a new business
A newly-established business needed assistance preparing a distribution and sales agreement for its products. We drafted and negotiated the agreement and has, since then, efficiently put together additional agreements for the sale of goods into new territories.
Other experience
- Counsel to a Santa Monica-based clean tech venture fund through several rounds of financing and investment transactions
- General counsel to a New York-based venture fund dedicated to helping early-stage startups enterprises and entrepreneurs
- Prepared investment agreements for early-stage sustainable building software company
- Shared economy company with developing terms, conditions, privacy compliance for its application-based sharing platform
- For-profit client with on-line fundraising (crowdfunding) under Title III of the federal JOBS Act
Partners
Of Counsel
Publications
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Client Alert: NLRB General Counsel Issues Guidance Regarding Confidentiality and Non-Disparagement Provisions Post-McLaren Macomb
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Mark Powers Writes “10 Things I know about … Silicon Valley Bank’s failure” for the Worcester Business Journal
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George Tetler Writes “Advice: Silicon Valley Bank closure impact on lease security” for the Worcester Business Journal
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Client Alert: Silicon Valley Bank Closure Impact on Lease Security
Events + Recordings
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Joshua Lee Smith to Present at 8th Annual Woostapreneurs Forum
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AiVi Nguyen to Moderate the Massachusetts Bar Association Program “Massachusetts Noncompetition Agreement Act: Four Years Later”
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Tracy Boland and Danielle Lederman Presented at AGCMA’s “Build A Foundation or Dig Yourself A Hole: Employment Law Fundamentals for Field Staff and HR Professionals”
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Joshua Lee Smith Spoke at Worcester Business Journal’s Central MA Life Sciences Forum
News
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Tim Van Dyck Quoted in Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly’s “NLRB prompts review of severance agreements”
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Danielle Lederman Quoted in “How employers can tweak their severance agreements after the NLRB’s crackdown” in the Boston Business Journal
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Tim Van Dyck Quoted in The Business Journals Playbook Newsletter Article “Feds issue game-changing ruling on nondisclosure agreements. Experts say employers should take these steps.”
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Bob Young Quoted in Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly’s “Business bar questions FTC’s proposed ban on noncompetes”
At the Bar With Bowditch
Concrete Steps Employers Should Consider When Drafting Severance Agreements in the Wake of McLaren Macomb
Tim Van Dyck Quoted in The Business Journals Playbook Newsletter Article “Feds issue game-changing ruling on nondisclosure agreements. Experts say employers should take these steps.”
Employers Beware – Your Confidentiality Provisions May Come Back to Bite You
Campus Counsel
Tim Van Dyck Quoted in Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly’s “NLRB prompts review of severance agreements”
Danielle Lederman Quoted in “How employers can tweak their severance agreements after the NLRB’s crackdown” in the Boston Business Journal
Client Alert: Concrete Steps Employers Should Consider When Drafting Severance Agreements in the Wake of McLaren Macomb
