Shoosmiths corporate team in London reports on a busy twelve months

The London corporate team at leading UK law firm Shoosmiths has experienced an exceptional and sustained busy deal period over the last twelve months, as the country has adapted to the continued disruption caused by the pandemic.

Throughout 2020, whilst the team have all had to embrace remote working, the appetite of investors and business owners to consider, negotiate and close deals did not abate. In fact, as the year drew to a close the pace of activity ramped up and this was clearly demonstrated through our technology sector client base and general levels of transactional activity.  Towards the end of last year a particular highlight for the London team was advising Lakestar, one of Europe’s most active venture capital firms, in leading a Series B funding round into the world’s first human intelligence platform, Streetbees.

The first quarter of 2021 continued in much the same vein. Having previously advised cloud data integration platform, Matillion, on previous funding rounds, the team was delighted to help it achieve its $100m funding milestone by advising on its Series D financing.

Other notable highlights these past few months have included advising clients such as proptech investor Pi Labs; Octopus Energy and Universally Speaking (specialist providers for the global gaming industry) on a major investment from leading private equity firm Phoenix Equity Partners and most recently Wrisk, one of the UK insurtech leaders, on an investment led by QBN Capital with participation from investors Guinness Asset Management and Cell Rising Capital.

“Talking to our regular investor and tech sector clients, the pipeline is looking really strong for the remainder of this year.  We’re looking forward to welcoming a number of new joiners to the team and eagerly anticipate the move to our larger office this summer,” said James Klein, head of the Shoosmiths’ London Corporate team and technology sector.