Jim advises private and public companies and investors in significant business transactions, from formation through liquidity. His practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions, venture capital financings, and emerging company counseling. His clients span a broad range of industries, with a concentration on life sciences and technology companies.
Jim represents buyers and sellers in private and public acquisitions across numerous transaction structures. His experience includes equity purchases, asset purchases, mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, cross-border transactions, and auctions. He has advised on deals ranging from several million dollars to more than $1 billion.
Jim counsels emerging and established life sciences and technology companies on equity financings and general corporate matters. He also represents angel, corporate, and venture capital investors making investments in those companies. He has advised clients in hundreds of venture capital financings, from seed rounds to later-stage rounds exceeding $100 million.
Jim represents public companies on public offerings, other capital markets transactions, and SEC reporting and compliance. He also advises boards of directors on corporate governance matters.
Jim serves on the leadership team of MoFo’s Life Sciences + Healthcare Group and on the firm’s Artificial Intelligence steering committee. He also serves on the board of directors of the San Diego Entrepreneurs Exchange.
Representative Transactions
Mergers and Acquisitions
- ACEA Biosciences, a medical instruments company, in its sale to Agilent Technologies (NYSE: A) for $250 million.
- Adicet Bio (Nasdaq: ACET), a biopharmaceutical company, in its merger with a wholly owned subsidiary of resTORbio (Nasdaq: TORC) to create a combined publicly traded biotechnology company.
- Alaska Energy & Resources Company, a parent company of a regulated electric utility in Alaska, in its $170 million sale to Avista (NYSE: AVA).
- Astute Medical, a medical diagnostic company, in its $90 million sale to bioMérieux (EPA: BIM).
- B. Riley Financial (Nasdaq: RILY), a diversified financial services company, in its $53 million private placement and merger with investment banking firm B. Riley & Co.
- Biotix, a private equity-backed developer and manufacturer of laboratory consumables and liquid handling solutions, in its sale to Mettler-Toledo (NYSE: MTD).
- California Cryobank, a private equity-backed leader in reproductive tissue donor services and stem cell banking, in multiple acquisitions.
- Clean Energy Fuels (Nasdaq: CLNE), a provider of natural gas as an alternative fuel for vehicle fleets, in its sale for up to $180 million of components of its renewable natural gas business to BP (NYSE: BP).
- Cogent (Nasdaq: COGT), a biometric identification solutions provider, in its $943 million sale to 3M (NYSE: MMM).
- Deere & Company (NYSE: DE), an agricultural, construction, and forestry machinery corporation, in its planned acquisition of the precision planting unit of Monsanto (NYSE: MON).
- Dosatron International, a distributor of water-powered dosing pumps and systems, in connection with its sale to Ingersoll Rand (NYSE:IR).
- Gillco, a leading specialty ingredient provider, in its sale to Azelis (BR: AZE).
- Mentor (NYSE: MNT), a leading supplier of medical products for the global aesthetic market, in its $1.12 billion sale to Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ).
- Mitchell International, a developer of smart technology solutions, in its acquisition of Cogent Works.
- MyChem, a provider of ultra-pure nucleotides, in connection with its sale to Maravai (NASDAQ: MRVI) for $240 million at closing with potential additional consideration.
- Protomer Technologies, a biotechnology company, in its sale to Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) with a potential value of over $1 billion with successful achievement of future development and commercial milestones.
- Rakuten Medical, a biotechnology and medical device company, in its acquisition of Medlight SA and its acquisition of key assets and manufacturing technology from Li-Cor Biosciences.
- Safebuilt Insurance Services, a managing general agent and insurance technology company, in its sale to Integrated Specialty Coverages.
- Sequlite Genomics, a DNA sequencing firm, in connection with its sale to Fapon Biotech, a diagnostic technology company.
- Tendo, a digital health software company, in its acquisition of MDsave, a healthcare marketplace company.
- Wavestream, a provider of high-power solid-state amplifiers, in its $137 million sale to Spacenet, a subsidiary of Gilat Satellite Networks (Nasdaq: GILT).
Equity Financings