Start-up and venture capital – Local firms

Allen & Gledhill LLP

Client Satisfaction

Allen & Gledhill LLP’s size and scale has enabled it to successfully target the start-up and venture capital sector. With an initial focus on venture capital investors, including Silicon Valley-based and Southeast Asia-focused entities, the firm has also built a significant record in representing their established portfolio companies. Responding to the difficult climate, the firm has assisted a wealth of clients through challenging times, including whistleblower situations and disputes. It has also advised a number of clients on de-SPAC transactions and remains active in seed financing through to Series C fundraisings. Christian Chin is co-head of the corporate mergers and acquisitions department and head of the venture capital practice; he continues to advise on headline deals, including de-SPAC transactions. Julian Ho and Nicholas Soh also have a major focus on this sector, while Song Su-Min and Teoh Sze Min are noted for later stage transactions.

Legal 500 Editorial commentary

Testimonials

Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.

‘Very experienced with early stage transaction documents, both on company and investor sides. A&G also has a local office in other countries such as Vietnam, which is particularly helpful when the investee company is operationally based in Vietnam, but has a holding company in Singapore. It has been much smoother to have A&G support us on both Singapore and Vietnam law.’
‘We have worked with Nicholas Soh on all of our deals with A&G and he has consistently given us great advice that can balance both legal and commercial perspectives. He and his team are always very responsive and easy to work with.’
‘Nicholas Soh and the team constantly provide us with solutions to commercial challenges and provide highly contextualized legal advice. In the current challenging climate, Nicholas and team are well equipped to assist us through various transactions which are becoming less standard. They have also provided a high degree of flexibility around workloads and have done exceedingly well when managing workloads from their clients.’
‘Nicholas Soh provided us with an incredibly high level of service and was highly responsive across the entire deal cycle. His ability to translate commercial matters to legal solutions is also highly impressive.’
‘The team has a deep understanding of the technology start-up and venture capital market, and is accustomed to acting for both investors and investees - giving them a more balanced viewpoint than others in the market.’
‘Nicholas Soh is commercial, incredibly transparent on fees, and provides excellent value for money. Nicholas is extremely available, and puts in the effort to understand our business and the risks that matter most to us.’
‘At the deal table, Nicholas Soh is a negotiator par excellence and ably represents every nuance of our deal preferences and philosophy with founders. He has a finely calibrated approach for each deal and gets us across the line with speed and efficiency. He has even gained the faith of some our founders after closing - they engaged Nicholas, with our approval, to represent their companies for later series deals. Nicholas’ work continues to be exceptional and we are delighted to continue working with Nicholas and his team.’

Work highlights

Advised Black Spade Acquisition Co on its business combination with VinFast Auto as part of a de-SPAC transaction.
Advised Hotel101 on its definitive merger agreement with JVSPAC Acquisition Corporation to list on NASDAQ.
Advised on YouTrip’s $50m Series B fundraising led by global venture capital firm Lightspeed.