Orrick Adds to Venture Capital Team in London

Orrick announced today that Ylan Steiner, head of the London Venture Capital team at King & Wood Mallesons, has joined Orrick as a partner in its Technology Companies Group, resident in the London office.

This addition follows the arrival of Christoph Brenner, head of KWM’s German Corporate practice and a leader in German private equity, who joined the firm as a partner in Orrick’s Munich office earlier this month. This also follows the arrival of Thomas Schmid who joined the firm’s Munich office from Weil Gotshal.

Recent transactions handled by Ylan include acting for:

• Vitruvian Partners in its investments in Just Eat, FarFetch, Ebury Partners, and Trustpilot
• Warburg Pincus in its investments in Explora Petroleum, Delonex Energy and Sand Hill Petroleum
• JC Flowers and its portfolio company OneSavings Bank on a range of transactions and subsequent IPO of OSB, the first British bank to list in over a decade
• Kennet Partners in its investment in RealityMine
• Blippar.com, Sefaira, The Currency Cloud, Evrythng and IdeaWorks3D in raising hundreds of millions in aggregate across their financing 

The KWM Venture Capital team is ranked Band Two in Chambers and Partners (2017 edition) for “Private Equity: Venture Capital Investment” and Tier 2 in Legal 500 (2017 edition) for “Venture Capital.” Ylan is a Chambers-ranked Band Two lawyer.

“Ylan is deeply respected in the London technology, venture capital and growth equity community. Having worked across the table from him for more than 15 years, I hold him in the highest regard and am thrilled that he is joining our team,” said Chris Grew, a partner in Orrick’s London Technology Companies Group.

“Ylan’s practice is a terrific fit with our London and global technology platform. He brings additional venture capital and growth equity depth to the team, as well as terrific founder relationships,” added Steven Venuto, head of Orrick’s Technology Companies Group.

“Orrick is a dominant firm serving the technology industry globally and an ideal platform for my practice. Joining a firm with deep roots in Silicon Valley and the technology sector is essential to working in the venture capital and growth equity industry. No other law firm has the geographic footprint and strength in the technology ecosystems in the US, Europe and China. I’m excited to work alongside Chris and Shawn Atkinson to continue to build on the firm’s strengths,” said Ylan.

Orrick’s London team ranked #1 in European venture capital financing through Q3 2016, with more than three times the volume of the runner-up firm (source: PitchBook).

Globally, the firm counsels more than 1,600 high growth companies and 100 venture capital firms. Over the past 12 months, Orrick has helped raise nearly $5 billion in venture capital financings globally through transactions in 35 countries. Law360 named the firm Tech Group of the Year in recognition of the breadth and global reach of the firm’s work in the technology space.