Stephen Venuto, a corporate partner, focuses on the representation of high growth technology and media companies, their founders and investors. He is also a member of Orrick's Leadership Team as the firmwide head of on-campus attorney recruiting, and is a managing member of Orrick's venture fund.
His practice includes the formation, financing and general corporate counseling of emerging growth private and public companies; representation of venture capital firms and investment banks in private and public offerings; and other complex transactions. Most of Mr. Venuto's clients are in fast growth fields related to biotechnology, clean technology, information technology, media and/or entertainment.
Mr. Venuto has completed hundreds of venture capital financings and numerous public offerings, mergers, acquisitions and licensing transactions.
Some of Mr. Venuto's clients have included:
- AcroMetrix (biotech - funded by Telegraph Hill Partners)
- Attributor (Internet)
- BenefitPoint (medical insurance brokerage service - funded by HarbourVest Partners, HLM Venture Partners, Institutional Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, and Trident Capital)
- ENDFORCE (Internet - funded by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, INVESCO Private Capital, WK Technology Fund)
- Facebook (Internet - funded by Accel Partners, Greylock, Meritech and Peter Thiel and others)
- Geni (Internet - founded by David Sacks, funded by Charles River Ventures and Founders Fund)
- Greenplum (database - funded by Dawntreader, EDF, Hudson & Mission)
- Halycon Molecular (biotechnology)
- Handmark (gaming - funded by Apax Partners and David Hanna)
- Iridigm Display (semiconductor & display - sold to Qualcomm)
- Laserscope (medical device - publicly traded company, sold)
- Modelinia (new media - founded by Desiree Gruber, funded by Polaris Ventures)
- Ooma (consumer electronics - funded by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Founders Fund, and Worldview Technology Partners)
- Powerset (Internet search - sold to Microsoft, funded by Foundation Capital and Founders Fund)
- PureVideo Networks (Internet - funded by Softbank Capital)
- Renkoo (Internet)
- VideoEgg (Internet advertising - funded by August Capital and others)
- W5 Networks (electronic shelf labels and RFID - funded by Thomas Weisel Venture Partners and U.S. Venture Partners)
- Xobni (e-mail - funded by First Round Capital, Khosla Ventures and others)
- Yammer (Internet - founded by David Sacks)
Mr. Venuto also has represented many venture capital and investment banking clients including Credit Suisse First Boston, Eastman Kodak’s venture fund, Founders Fund, Goldman, Sachs & Co., Matrix Partners, Thomas Weisel Venture Partners, Trinity Ventures and U.S. Venture Partners. He has worked on numerous public offerings involving such companies as Inktomi, MIPS, Preview Systems, Silicon Graphics and others.
Mr. Venuto has programming experience. He has created and runs his own Web site focused on wine (using PHP and PERL), The Oenophile Network, was an HTML programmer and editor of one of the earliest legal oriented Web sites on the Internet and was the systems operator of several bulletin board systems in the mid '80s.
Before joining the firm, Mr. Venuto was an attorney at Venture Law Group.
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