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European VC Landscape

Shawn Atkinson Partner

Londres

As Europe's premier tech business advisors, Shawn and his team have overseen several hundred venture financings, private equity buyouts and M&A transactions over the course of the last decade. Leading venture capital and growth funds, private equity, and high-growth tech companies rely upon his unsurpassed industry knowledge as much as his relentless commitment to their business.

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; Paris Tech Studio

Benjamin Cichostepski-Lesage dirige la pratique Tech Companies d'Orrick en France depuis le Paris Tech Studio.

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 260 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).

Sous l'impulsion de Ben, la pratique Tech d’Orrick s'est hissée depuis plusieurs années dans le Top 3 des cabinets les plus actifs en Venture et Tech Growth en France (Classements 2019, 2020 et 2021 Capital Finance – Groupe Les Echos « Les cabinets d’avocats les plus actifs en Venture tricolore », Classement 2023 de PitchBook).

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

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

Dr. Sven Greulich, partner at Orrick's Düsseldorf office, guides technology companies of all stages and their financial sponsors through transformational corporate transactions. These deals include venture capital financings, technology acquisitions, buy-out M&A of technology companies and strategic cross-border investments/JVs.

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/VC and corporate advice. In each of its yearbooks since 2019, JUVE named Sven as one of Germany's top 15 attorneys for venture capital (the highest recognition for this category awarded by JUVE);
• the Legal500 Rankings EMEA for 2021 recommends Sven for “mid-sized international Corporate M&A deals (€100m-€500m)” and "Venture Capital Deals";
• Best Lawyers and Handelsblatt recommend him as top lawyer for M&A transactions (2021);
• Chambers Europe lists him as notable practitioner for venture capital (2021);
• 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”; and
• since 2017, he has annually received the “Acritas Star Lawyer” award from the leading international legal research company Acritas based on clients' praise for Sven's responsiveness and business-oriented advice for technology companies.

Attilio Mazzilli Partner

Milan

Attilio Mazzilli is a corporate partner, member of the international Technology Companies Group and Head of the Italian Tech Group.

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.