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European VC Landscape

Shawn Atkinson Partner

Londres

In addition to sheer volume of deals, Shawn's incomparable market insight stems from his leadership roles at Orrick, the only global firm focused on technology, and his experience working throughout the UK & Europe, North America and Asia. Shawn leads Orrick's London Corporate practice, its Global Emerging Markets practice and co-leads the Global Fintech team and the Global Technology Companies Practice Group. These complement his practice serving public and private companies in UK multi-jurisdictional and complex corporate transactions, including countless acquisitions and disposals, cross-border mergers, bankruptcy infused asset sales, recapitalisations and reorganisations. He is also a recognised leader in late stage venture transactions and in early stage private equity transactions in Europe and the emerging markets.

Shawn also advises early stage businesses across a number of sectors – including insurtech, Fintech, Crypto, SaaS, EdTech, HRTech, Marketplace and EnergyTech. He assists them from incorporation through to M&A exit, initial public offerings and other growth opportunities. His participation in the private equity and venture capital sector spans his entire career - with time spent in private practice, in-house and advising investors as well as investor-backed businesses-and affords him a deep knowledge and understanding of the industry and client needs and expectations.

Among the leading investment funds he has represented are ABN Amro Ventures, Acton Capital Partners, ABRY Partners, Accel Partners, Apax Partners, Bain Capital, Balderton Capital, Battery Ventures, Beringea, Bessemer Venture Partners, Black Pearls VC, Black Sheep Ventures, BMWi Ventures, Coatue Management, Columbia Capital, CommerzVentures, Evolvence, FTV Capital, Golden Gate Capital, Stepstone Group, Headway Capital Partners, Innova Capital, Kinnevik, KPS Capital Partners, Marlin Equity Partners, Mangrove Capital Partners, M/C Partners, One Peak, Oxx, Pearson Ventures, Piper Private Equity, Piton Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Sprints Capital, Summit Partners, Updata Partners, VNV Global and VEF.

Benjamin Cichostepski-Lesage Partner

Paris

Ben est associé fondateur de la pratique Tech Companies Group d'Orrick en France. Depuis près de 15 ans, il conseille les entreprises innovantes à fort potentiel ainsi que les investisseurs en Venture et Tech Growth sur toutes leurs opérations corporate de capital-investissement et de fusions-acquisitions en France et à l’international.

A ce titre, il intervient à tous les stades de leur développement, de l’incubation et des levées de fonds aux opérations de croissance externe et de sorties, industrielles ou en bourse.

Ben dispose en particulier d’une expérience reconnue dans l’accompagnement de sociétés françaises désireuses de s’implanter aux Etat-Unis. Il assiste des start-ups françaises tout au long de leur croissance outre-Atlantique ainsi qu’une clientèle d’investisseurs ou acquéreurs américains.

Depuis son premier deal Venture en 2006, où il représentait Lightspeed Venture Partners dans le cadre de la Series A de Wikio, devenue Teads, société qu’il a par la suite accompagnée pendant 11 ans jusqu’à sa cession à Altice, Ben a mené plus de 290 opérations Corporate Tech et est intervenu sur les principales opérations de sorties de ces dernières années, notamment franco-américaines (Neolane/Adobe, La Fourchette/TripAdvisor, Stupeflix/GoPro, eNovance/Red Hat, Regaind, Zenly/Snap, Teads/Altice, Getaround/Drivy, Glose/Medium, Sqreen/Datadog, Lalilo/Renaissance Learning, Tempow/Google, Context/Integral Ad Science, Monk/ACV Auctions, Cajoo/Flink, Shipfix/Veson Nautical).

Sous le leadership de Ben, la pratique Tech d’Orrick est devenue et se classe N°1 en Venture Capital et Tech Growth en France (classée N°1 par Pitchbook - 2021, 2022, 2023 - et CF News - 2022, 2023).

Distingué chaque année parmi les meilleurs avocats du marché en Venture Capital et Tech Growth, Ben figure à la première place du "Top 10 Influential French Venture Capital Lawyers in Private Equity 2023" de Business Today. Il a été élu "Lawyer of the Year" dans l'édition 2023 de Best Lawyers France pour la catégorie Venture Capital. Il est également classé Leading Individual par Legal 500 EMEA dans la catégorie Private Equity - Venture Capital/Growth Capital et était en tête du « Top 10 des avocats les plus actifs dans la Tech en 2019 » de CFNews (février 2020).

Ben est également à l'origine de la création de Orrick Paris Tech Studio, un espace de travail unique en son genre lancé en juin 2022 et situé au coeur du Silicon Sentier et qui abrite le siège de la pratique Tech d'Orrick en France.

Dr. Sven Greulich, LL.M. (Cantuar), EMBA Partner

Dusseldorf

Sven advises technology companies on complex cross-border mergers and acquisitions, and venture capital as well as growth investments, and provides general corporate counseling.

His clients include technology companies of all stages and their investors. Supported by a global and cross-practice team, he also counsels major corporations and scale-ups on international expansion and growth projects and has a special focus on in- and outbound German/US investments and joint ventures.

Sven is passionate about building a bridge for his clients from Germany to the US and other international technology hubs and to help them succeed in the international market. With a dual background in business and law, an entrepreneurial spirit, and experience in over 200 M&A transactions and financing rounds across many industries, Sven has a unique perspective, which inspires him to find the best strategic and commercially viable solution for his clients.

Sven volunteers with entrepreneur groups at the WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management and the RWTH Aachen and regularly lectures at the WHU and the RWTH incubation and innovation centers on venture capital financings, start-up growth and corporate venture capital.

Sven's work has been repeatedly awarded, inter alia

• the leading German market publication JUVE ranks him as "frequently recommended for M&A, PE and corporate advice. Since 2019, JUVE ranks Sven as one of Germany's top 15 attorneys for venture capital (the highest recognition for this category awarded by JUVE);
• Legal500 recommends Sven in its 2023 ranking for "mid-sized international Corporate M&A deals (€100m-€500m)" and venture capital and lists him as an exceptional practitioner for venture capital;
• Chambers recommends Sven for M&A as well as venture capital and lists him as an exceptional practitioner (2023);
• Best Lawyers and Handelsblatt recommend him as top lawyer for M&A transactions (2023); and
• in the 2017 edition of its Innovative Lawyers Report Europe, the Financial Times named Sven's work to connect start-ups with Germany's Mittelstand (mid-sized companies) a standout “for making bridges between Silicon Valley and Germany”.

Attilio Mazzilli Partner

Milan

His practice focuses on cross-border and domestic mergers and acquisitions, private equity and venture capital transactions. He advises high growth technology companies and Venture Capital firms in several areas, including corporate and securities law, mergers and acquisitions, and listings. Several standout technology companies and their founders have turned to Attilio, who currently represents the same at all stages of their life-cycle.