Emerging Companies & Entrepreneurs
Graham & Dunn offers a highly experienced Emerging Companies & Entrepreneurs Industry Team (EC&E), comprised of attorneys whose focus and forte is to represent and serve emerging companies and individual entrepreneurs who are ready to take their ideas to the next level.
Our practice attorneys are uniquely qualified to provide focused, pragmatic legal counsel, blended with strategic business advice, both on a full-service or transaction basis. Each of us offers real-world business counsel; most of us have previously worked in operations, in-house or as general counsel to a company. We appreciate the dynamics of emerging companies; we understand the sense of urgency in starting a business, the limited resources available, and the thin margin for error. Each of us has gravitated to this practice because we are entrepreneurial ourselves and thrive on the excitement and energy involved in new ventures and ideas. We genuinely enjoy working with entrepreneurs and relish the opportunity to roll up our sleeves and become an integral part of our clients' teams.
"INDUSTRY" FOCUS
Our work with emerging companies and entrepreneurs is a core competency, delivered through a well-organized and defined industry team. Unlike most firms, we do not treat this as an “add-on” to general corporate services. Instead, we inherently understand the common set of business issues which generally affect emerging companies and are very used to quickly coming up to speed on those which are unique to each because of their particular circumstances. In every case, we work to provide clear and actionable legal advice that helps our clients achieve their goals.
Not surprisingly, given our depth and breadth of experience at representing emerging companies, we have deep business relationships within the emerging company ecosystem. As part of our strategic business counsel, we routinely share with our clients this network of angel investors, venture capitalists, emerging company service providers, and more.
SERVICES
We provide full service and transaction-based counsel to emerging companies and entrepreneurs in all types of industries, including technology, communications, manufacturing, services, real estate, retail, financial, health care, franchise, and natural resources. Our clients typically engage us in one of two ways:
Full Service
We act as outside general counsel helping emerging companies quickly progress through all of the legal steps that are necessary to establish, finance, operate, and monetize a business. More often than not, our emerging company clients also invite us to provide ongoing strategic business advice to help achieve short- and long-term goals.
Transaction-based
We also work with clients on a single-transaction basis or a transaction-by-transaction basis. Examples include advising on and helping complete a merger or acquisition or supporting a significant business deal such as handling the legal aspects of an exclusive licensing arrangement.
CLIENT REFERENCES
We believe that the best perspective on the value of our unique approach is provided by our clients. Accordingly, we strongly encourage those who are considering us as counsel to contact our clients and ask them about us. Please contact Pat Franke at pfranke@grahamdunn.com or 206.340.8779 for a list of client references or more information about our group.
