Private Equity and Venture Capital

The Private Equity and Venture Capital Practice at Gould & Ratner is unique among Chicago law firms, with a skilled and experienced team of corporate lawyers who work closely with some of the nation's largest and most prestigious private equity funds and venture capital firms, as well as numerous entrepreneurs, startups, emerging companies and closely held businesses.

Our lawyers have significant experience representing investors across a wide range of industries, both in traditional areas like manufacturing and real estate, as well as in emerging verticals like alternative energy and cryptocurrency.  Our team can scale up or down depending on the need of our clients, whether they’re a large venture capital firm acting as lead investor in a $100 million-plus deal or an individual taking a $1 million-plus stake in a start-up.  

We often find ourselves at the deal table with lawyers from much larger law firms, yet it’s our clients who remark repeatedly on how much more value we provide with practical, business-focused counsel that’s tailored specifically to meet the needs of our clients.  We’ve earned many new clients in subsequent deals who had previously sat across the table, a proud distinction for our practice and reflective of our exceptional level of client service.

Our practice is large enough to:

• Have handled more than $10 billion of transactions in the last decade
• Closed an average of more than 50 venture capital and private equity transactions per year
• Handled transactions of more than $1 billion in value
• Structured sophisticated and complex domestic and foreign transactions
• Represented many recognizable clients in the middle market, both in the Midwest and internationally
• Handled all facets of private equity deals, including fund formations and relations with boards, investors, founders and key executives

But we also scale down to:

• Value our close and longstanding relationships with middle-market, family office and entrepreneurial clients
• Provide significant involvement, oversight and service from lawyers with longtime experience in corporate transactions of all kinds
• Have an efficient, effective staffing model and cost structure
• Use a collaborative, team-oriented approach tailored to our client’s needs
• Avoid layers – and costs related to – unnecessary specialists and undertrained associates
• Stress practicality and business solutions over excessive billing rates

Representing funds, investors in funds, family offices and other dynamic businesses, our team has extensive experience in negotiating and documenting their investment in private companies, including early stage, growth stage, later stage, recapitalizations, workouts and management buyouts.

Our experience includes representing these clients as lead investors, as well as in structuring and executing platform, add-on and other acquisition and sale transactions. We also represent a large number of funds, founders and management teams in connection with venture capital financings.