A Panel of Experts Discusses How Startups can Optimize Founder Equity.

Company founders need to sell equity in order to raise capital, while still preserving as much as they can for themselves and their team. Each round of financing causes more dilution (and potentially less control of the company). How do company founders manage this process in an optimized way?

Also, the road from founding a company to getting to a liquidity event can be many, many years, so how do founders get a little liquidity along the way?

Our panel of experienced founders and investors will discuss. 

Louis Lehot
Attorney
Louis Lehot is a partner and business lawyer with Foley & Lardner LLP, based in the firm’s Silicon Valley offices, where he is a member of the Private Equity & Venture Capital, M&A and Transactions Practices as well as the Technology, Health Care, Life Sciences and Energy Industry Teams. Louis focuses his practice on advising entrepreneurs and their management teams, investors and financial advisors at all stages of growth, from garage to global. Louis especially enjoys being able to help his clients achieve hyper-growth, go public and to successfully obtain optimal liquidity events. Learn more.

André Thiollier is a partner with Foley & Lardner LLP, based in the firm’s Silicon Valley office, where he is a member of the firm’s Transactions Practice. André’s practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions, private equity, emerging growth and venture financings, and general corporate and business counseling. He represents a variety of clients ranging from late-stage private companies and strategic buyers to venture capital and private equity funds across various industries, including life sciences, technology, financial services, healthcare and outsourcing. Learn more.

Natasha Allen
Attorney
Natasha Allen is a partner based in the Silicon Valley and San Francisco offices of Foley & Lardner LLP, where she serves as Co-Chair for Artificial Intelligence within our Innovative Technology sector, Co-Chair of the Venture Capital Committee, and is a member of the Venture Capital, M&A and Transactions Practices. Natasha has advised public and private companies in corporate and securities matters, mergers and acquisitions, public and private offerings, company and investor side venture capital financings, formations, corporate governance, and other general corporate matters. Learn more.

Bret Waters has been in Silicon Valley his entire life as an entrepreneur, executive, and investor. Today he teaches entrepreneurship at Stanford, runs the 4thly Startup Accelerator, and coaches startup CEO’s at Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship. He’s successfully raised capital multiple times in his career, and the entrepreneurs he has worked with have raised hundreds of millions of dollars in capital. He received his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.