Louis Lehot

On a very short list of leading corporate lawyers in California, Louis Lehot has handled some of the highest profile matters in recent years in the tech, health care, and clean energy spaces. A partner in the firm’s Private Equity & Venture Capital, M&A, and Transactions Practices, as well as the Technology, Health Care, Life Sciences, and Energy Industry Teams, Louis is skilled at taking clients from garage to global, helping them achieve hyper-growth, go public, and successfully obtain best-possible liquidity events.

Domain experience in public offerings and private placements of equity, equity-linked, and debt securities, mergers, acquisitions, dispositions, spinoffs, strategic investments, and joint ventures. Excels in cross-border deals, having represented public and private clients in the US and globally. Regularly represents US and non-US registrants before the SEC, FINRA, NYSE, and Nasdaq. Admitted to practice in California and New York. Fluent in French and English.

Advises entrepreneurs and their management teams, investors, and financial advisors at all stages of growth. Guides emerging private companies as they secure venture capital financing, prepare for IPO or de-SPAC, and navigate the exit. Louis draws on more than 25 years of global experience to build deal strategies and processes that make sense.

Ranked by Chambers USA in Venture Capital (California) each year from 2021 through 2026, and in Startups and Emerging Growth (Nationwide) in 2025 and 2026. Previously identified as a leader in Capital Markets: Debt & Equity (California) from 2012 through 2015, and previously recognized by The Legal 500 US in mergers & acquisitions and corporate and commercial. Named a JD Supra Readers’ Choice Top Author in M&A in 2024, 2025, and 2026, ranked third nationally in 2026. Two-time faculty member at the world-renowned Stanford Directors’ College.

NACD Northern California Leadership Advisory Council (since 2024). Law360 Mergers & Acquisitions Editorial Advisory Board (2023). ABA Business Law Section, Subcommittee on Negotiated Acquisitions. Past member, Boston College Law School Business Advisory Council. Past chapter sponsor, Association of Corporate Counsel, Bay Area Corporate and Securities Law Committee. Past advisory board member, SVDX.

Mergers, Acquisitions, and Joint Ventures

Louis regularly represents buyers and sellers in creating innovative acquisition programs, smart structures, and smooth processes across share purchases, mergers, asset purchases, and licenses. Representative matters include:

• Matterport (Nasdaq: MTTR) in its sale to CoStar Group (Nasdaq: CSGP) for cash and stock valued at over $2.1 billion

• Mirantis in its $625 million all-stock sale to IREN (Nasdaq: IREN), bringing Kubernetes and enterprise operations expertise to AI datacenter infrastructure

• Zero Cognitive Systems in the sale of its HerculesAI legaltech business to Aderant, a subsidiary of Roper Technologies

• Riverwood Capital in its $180 million acquisition of a controlling stake in LeapXpert, the leader in governed communication intelligence

• Kapital Bank in its acquisition of US broker-dealer, asset management, and advisory businesses from Intercam Grupo Financiero

• Archimed, a leading global healthcare private equity fund, in buyouts including skincare platform Cellese

• The League App in its sale to Match Group (Nasdaq: MTCH)

• Wine Access, a Norwest portfolio company, in its sale to Full Glass Wine Co.

• Vcheck Global in its sale to funds affiliated with Sunstone Partners, and Zonehaven, the SaaS solution for emergency evacuation, in its sale to Genasys

Venture Capital & Growth Equity

• Represented NEA in seed and follow-on investments including Robinhood (IPO), ScoutRFP (sold to Workday), and Automation Anywhere

• Represented Samsung Ventures in dozens of early- to late-stage investments in technology, health care, and life sciences, including Anthropic, Physical Intelligence, Walden Robotics, and XBOW, together with portfolio management and monetization

• Represented LG Technology Ventures in its initial fund formation and in more than a dozen investments, including Claroty, May Mobility, Obsidian Security, and Zenity

• Represented Accel, Andreessen Horowitz, Foundation Capital, General Atlantic, Nautilus Venture Partners, Oak Investment Partners, Venrock, and numerous other venture capital firms in early- to late-stage investments across technology, life sciences, med-tech, health care, and clean energy

• Represented corporate venturing groups including AIG, Atomico, CBRE, GE Ventures, Hanwha Q Cells, Lenovo, MS&AD Ventures, Next47, OSRAM, Propel Ventures, Robert Bosch, Salesforce Ventures, and Siemens in strategic investments in technology and health care businesses

• Represented TDK Ventures in Fund Ex1, a dedicated energy disruption fund, and a dedicated India fund, along with numerous portfolio company investments and follow-on financings

• Represented Cortical Ventures in AI investments including CaspianDB, Immerok, Weaviate, and other AI businesses, and Tenacity Venture Capital in seed-stage fintech investments

Fund Formation

Represented emerging and established managers, including AI Sprouts VC, Carat Venture Partners, Cervin Ventures, First Rays Venture Partners, Mighty Capital and One Way Ventures, in raising, deploying, monitoring, and harvesting venture capital, from first funds through dedicated sector vehicles.

Emerging Growth Companies

Over his more than 25-year career, Louis has represented emerging growth companies from garage to global, from formation to liquidity, including:

• Bhuma, the dev-ops no-code software platform, in its sale to IBM

• Centric Software, the PLM enterprise SaaS company backed by Oak Investment Partners and sold to Dassault Systemes

• Gatik AI, autonomous logistics, backed by Koch Disruptive Technologies

• Instock, the customer fulfillment robotics company backed by Amazon and Lux Capital

• Kapital Bank, the Mexican fintech, in its Series A, B, and C financings

• Lumotive, advanced LiDAR sensing and perception, backed by Gates Frontier Fund and Samsung Ventures, among others

• Mindvalley, the consumer edtech and personal growth platform

• Semarchy, sold to affiliates of Providence Strategic Growth

• Securly, sold to Golden Gate

• Tuplejump, sold to Apple

• Burq, the API integration platform backed by Bertelsmann, Alumni Ventures, and One Way Ventures

• Design Barn, creator of LottieFiles, the multiplatform animation tool backed by Square Peg, M12, Adobe, and 500 Global

• GoodData, the enterprise SaaS company backed by General Catalyst, Andreessen Horowitz and Intel Capital

• International Battery Company, prismatic lithium-ion cells for AI datacenter and electric mobility applications

• OpenLight Photonics, the semiconductor venture backed by Mayfield and HPE

• Regrow Agriculture, the agtech platform backed by Main Sequence Ventures, M12, and the corporate venture arm of Cargill

• Sound Patrol, the AI-enabled anti-piracy lab protecting music for artists and labels

• Blockstream, Bionure, CheckALT, Sorcero, and Spire Bioventures, among many others

Capital Markets Transactions

• Represented doc.ai and founders in combination with Sharecare and Falcon Capital Acquisition Corp. in a de-SPAC’ing transaction (2021)

• Represented SoftBank as selling holder in Slack’s direct listing (2019)

• Represented SoftBank as selling holder in 10x Genomics’ IPO (2019)

• Represented SoftBank as selling holder in Guardant Health’s IPO and follow-on offerings (2018)

• Represented CHC Group, Ltd. in its IPO (2014)

• Represented LegalZoom in its attempted IPO (2012)

• Represented RealD in its IPO and follow-on offering (July and December 2010)

• Represented OpenTable in its follow-on offering (2009)

• Represented underwriters, Micron (2009)

• Represented CBRE in multiple capital markets transactions

• Represented underwriters in Heckmann Corporation’s SPAC IPO and financial advisors in its subsequent de-SPAC transaction (2007-2008)

• Represented underwriters in AMIS Holdings’ public offering (2007)

• Longstanding counsel to public companies, including Matterport (Nasdaq: MTTR), Avnet (Nasdaq: AVT), CHC Helicopter (NYSE: HELI), CSR plc (Nasdaq: CSR), Dasan Zhone Solutions (Nasdaq, DZSI), Hanwha Q Cells (Nasdaq: QCELLS), Seagate Technology (Nasdaq: STX), SiRF Technology Holdings (Nasdaq: SIRF) and STMicro (NYSE: STM), and many more, and in public offerings, private placements, and securities compliance before the SEC, FINRA, NYSE, and Nasdaq

• Convertible note and high yield bond offerings for dozens of issuers and underwriters