Innovation & Venture Capital

Attentive to the new demands of the market and considering its extensive track record, the firm decided to gather a multidisciplinary team to launch VR1, a core specialized in innovation, digital transformation and Venture Capital. The result is the consolidation of a true “one-stop-shop”, capable of analyzing all legal aspects of new technologies in the digital age, including corporate structuring, tax planning, regulatory/compliance, data privacy, and investment advice for both funds and startups.

Our expertise includes the following activities:

• ‍M&A/Investments – assistance related to fund-raising, investments and market consolidation for Venture Capital and Corporate Venture funds, angel investor, startups and strategic players.
• ‍Corporate Venture/Open Innovation Programs – development of open innovation programs for business groups. Formation of Corporate Venture funds, use of tax incentives, creation of Innovation hubs, incorporation of non-profit entities to promote innovation and angel client strategies.
• ‍Business Structuring – assistance with all corporate/regulatory and tax planning aspects for funds, corporations and startups, including support to the biggest EOS block producer, a leading case regarding taxation of cryptomining activity in Brazil.

Our portfolio includes funds, fintechs, agritechs, adtech, edutech, retail tech, new products, cryptominers, blockchain development consulting, corporations and others.

Alliances

As part of our full service strategy, we formed 2 alliances to fully cover legal services in the Innovation ecosystem:

• ‍together with Tanoira Cassagne, an Argentine full service firm with extensive experience advising Venture Capital and startups, we have built a LATAM Corporate Venture platform in order to allow our clients to fully integrate with the startups scenario in Latin America as a whole, including the Portuguese and Spanish speaking communities; and‍
• we have partnered with Nós 8, a legal knowledge sharing platform for innovative entrepreneurs, providing guidance for high-impact projects, to support innovative entrepreneurs and start-ups in need of legal services, and also to provide advice on Intellectual Property.

Promotion of Innovation

Our team is engaged in several relevant initiatives of the innovation ecosystem, from advisory to Accelerator and Incubator Startups (Endeavor, Fábrica de Startups, Startup Farm, Instituto Gênesis, BNDES Garagem, COPPE/UFRJ, Cietec/USP, etc.), participation in lectures organized by the main institutions (AB2L, WeWork Labs, etc.), participation and involvement in academic activities, such as the coordination of FGV’s Law post-graduation for Startups and Entrepreneurs, the Advisory Laboratory for Law Advisory and New Technologies (Laboratório de Assessoria Jurídica a Novas Tecnologias LAJUNT), among others.

Thus, we are able to provide advice on strategic and business issues in all types of demand related to Innovation and Venture Capital.

In addition, our team collaborates with one of the most innovative social projects in Brazil, participating in the ongoing negotiations to bring the methodology of “École 42” from France to Rio de Janeiro, aiming at the technical training of less favored social groups in software programming and development.

Recognition

The Innovation, Digital Transformation & Venture Capital practice is recognized among the leading players in the Brazilian legal market by the Leaders League.