High Growth and Venture Capital

Partnering with high growth companies, their advisers and investors

Our High Growth and Venture Capital team is a partner-led multi-disciplinary, cross-border team focused on advising high growth companies, venture and growth capital funds, and corporate clients, as well as a broader range of investors. We have a team of over 10 high growth and venture capital lawyers based in offices across the UK, Europe, Middle East, Asia and Australia.

Our clients span a multitude of industries driven by digitalisation, from disruptors and start-ups to enterprises, institutions and funds. This provides our team with exceptional market insight, enabling us to advise clients commercially and incisively in relation to all aspects of their growth, including corporate and fund formation, funding rounds, commercial transactions, partnerships and potential exit scenarios.

A differentiated offering

We offer a competitively priced global end-to-end service providing an intricate blend of commercially focused advice covering a range of matters, including:

• Corporate (including fund formation)
• Debt and equity finance
• Intellectual property
• Data protection
• Employment and incentives
• Tax
• Disputes

in each case finely tuned to the specific concerns of a business operating or investing in the high growth and venture capital space.

We seek true partnership with our high growth and venture capital clients and are willing to make the necessary investment to build long-lasting relationships. We do not sacrifice quality for price, meaning we can provide clients with more for less while maintaining the partner-led approach that Ashurst is known for.

Our experience

A selection of our recent High Growth and Venture Capital experience includes advising:

• An Indian family office: on a $200 million investment in Airtel Africa as part of a $1.45 billion global fundraise and subsequently in relation to the Airtel Africa IPO.
• Bene: on its seed round of fundraising and its shareholder arrangements and its subsequent series A round of fundraising.
• Brighte Capital: on its seed round of fundraising and Shareholders Agreement, its securitisation programme and its Series A fundraising led by Grok Ventures (the private investment vehicle established by Atlassian co-founder and co-CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes) and its Series B fundraising led by AirTree Ventures.
• Cashlink: on the establishment of a platform for the issuance and trading of securities tokens for VC-backed companies.
• Daphni, Triodos Organic Growth Fund and Spice Capital: on their €4 million investment in the Beendhi group.
• District 34: on its formation, shareholders' agreement and advance subscription funding round.
• Golden River Service, the operator of ecommerce platform crazydeals.com: on its seed fundraising led by Futec International.
• Judo Capital: on its seed round of investment via convertible notes and warrants, the design and implementation of its management equity plan under the ATO's tax concessions for early stage companies and its $130 million Series A round of fundraising, its successful application to become an authorised deposit taking institution and its record breaking $400 million Series B fundraising.
• Meyer Burger: on its investment in Oxford Photovoltaics, UK solar technology business, as part of a £60m Series D funding round.
• Santander's digital banking platform Asto: on its acquisition of HQ Mobile, developer of the Albert invoicing app.
• Sustenir Group: on its Series A fundraising lead by Grok Ventures and shareholder arrangements (Grok Ventures is the private investment vehicle established by Atlassian co-founder and co-CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes).

Ashurst Advance

Ashurst Advance is our "NewLaw" legal operations division created to meet our clients' demand for innovative and our cost-effective delivery of legal services.

Our High Growth and Venture Capital team works closely with our Ashurst Advance Delivery and Digital Ventures business units and is able to make available the services of those teams, which include lawyers, legal analysts, legal technologists and digital product developers who help us provide clients with legal excellence and innovation combined with efficient delivery.