Cozen O’Connor’s nationally known Emerging Business & Venture Capital team has been deeply involved with this dynamic field for decades. We don’t dabble in the venture space — we live in it.
The firm counsels startup, early-stage, growth, and late-stage venture-backed companies through every stage of the corporate lifecycle, from formation and financing to maturation and exit. Complementing our company-side practice, the firm also represents venture capital funds, private equity funds, family offices, corporate venture capital funds, angels, and other high-net-worth investors.
Our team is ranked a National Tier 1 law firm in Venture Capital Law by U.S. News & World Report and is listed on Pitchbook’s National and Mid-Atlantic Region league tables of most active law firms in the venture capital space.
WHAT WE DO
Founding and Groundwork
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Pre-formation consideration, entity selection, and formation
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Founder shares, equity division, and vesting
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Ownership structure and cap table management
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Equity compensation and options (e.g., ISOs, NQSOs, profit interests, RSUs)
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Employee hiring and retention
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Proof-of-Concept (POC), pilot, and full-service customer contract negotiations
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Joint ventures, strategic alliances, and outsourcing
Financing and Exit
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Friends and family, angel, pre-seed, seed, and series preferred financings
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Convertible notes, SAFEs, priced series seed/preferred rounds, bridge loans, and recapitalizations
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Venture debt
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Crowdfunding
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Accelerator, incubator, and venture studio deals
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M&A, divestitures, spin-offs, and other forms of venture-backed company exits
Strategic Value
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Introductions to an extensive network of venture capital funds, private equity funds, family offices, corporate venture capital funds, angels, and other high-net-worth investors
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Business model design
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Market positioning
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Pitchdeck development and pitch coaching
WHY OUR FIRM
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Venture-backed enterprises move at breakneck pace; Cozen O’Connor provides timely, pragmatic, business-savvy advice that keeps clients moving forward.
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We bring deep experience in key industry verticals: health and medical tech, digital health, telemedicine, cannabis, ed tech, insurtech, proptech, fintech/finserv, adtech, fashiontech, blockchain, NFTs, metaverse, drones, robotics and AI, data storage and cloud computing, digital entertainment, social networking, tech-adjacent consumer products, and others.
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Cozen O’Connor’s COpilot program offers sophisticated information and resources to nascent startups as well as deferral opportunities for qualifying enterprises.
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Our lead attorneys are investors, entrepreneurs, and startup veterans themselves, so they know first-hand what it takes to build successful venture-backed companies.