Helping VCs launch and invest funds

The stakes are high when it comes to raising investment and deploying this in innovative businesses, even when they have long-term growth potential. With OC Ventures, you'll benefit from our rounded and long-term experience of acting for both VCs and investee companies. Our specialist team advises a significant number of institutional VC and growth capital investors on all stages of their lifecycle, throughout their fundraising, investing and exit cycles. Our extensive understanding of the market will help you achieve the best results possible and mitigate associated risk.

Fund formation

Successfully launching a new venture capital fund is a complex and involved business. Our market-leading venture capital funds team has been helping VCs to successfully structure, launch, manage and operate their funds and other investment structures for many years and our experience covers a vast range of legal structures and strategies spanning angel collectives/syndicates, EIS funds and GP/LP funds (early-stage all the way through to late-stage and growth capital). We can assist you in the design and launch of new fund structures, management and ownership arrangements, structuring carried-interest and co-investment, internal governance, compliance and operations, spinouts/fund restructurings and secondary transactions. We are familiar with dealing with the range of limited partners investing into venture capital funds, whether that be high net-worth individuals, family offices, strategic corporates, British Business Bank (including the ECF program), pension funds and insurance companies, fund of funds, development finance institutions and others. Our venture capital funds team is supported by specialist lawyers across various European offices covering tax, regulation, fund finance and venture debt, employment, intellectual property, litigation, among others. Beyond advising sponsors on fundraisings, we also have a wealth of experience advising institutional investors on their investments into venture capital funds.

Deploying capital

We can advise you through making investments at all stages of the fundraising spectrum, from seed rounds through Series A, Series B and beyond to larger growth capital rounds, as well as convertibles, secondaries and share capital re-sets. Our approach is to take a commercial view that is informed by our knowledge of current practice and trends. We'll help you find practical solutions and navigate all legal, regulatory and commercial aspects of deploying capital, ensuring that all the right documentation is in place to properly protect your interests. This includes assisting with the drafting and negotiation of heads of terms, subscription and shareholders' or investment agreements, and articles of association. We understand the issues and dynamics that regularly arise between a company and its investors in such arrangements. Throughout negotiations we'll provide market appropriate and sensible advice to guide you in your decision making.

Portfolio advice

Our support does not end once the investment transaction has completed. Osborne Clarke’s Portfolio Group is an all-service platform supporting investors and the management teams they back to realise the potential of investments through the lifetime of the investment. We advise on strategic value add projects including buy-and-build acquisitions and expansion into new markets, minimising legal and regulatory risk, as well as supporting your investee companies with business as usual matters, such as strategic hires and employee incentivisation arrangements.

Exits

When the time comes to exit your investment and realise the benefits, our experienced team can guide you through this crucial process, whether this liquidity event takes the form of a sale to a trade buyer, sale to a management team (for example, by way of a management buy-out (MBO) backed by a private equity fund) or an initial public offering (IPO). We can apply our legal and market knowledge and experience to help you and your management teams get the business exit-ready and then guide you through the due diligence process and transaction documentation.