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MoFo Advises Casper Studios on Acquisition by Ode with Anthropic

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Morrison Foerster advised Casper Studios, an AI services firm that helps companies put Claude to work inside the systems their...

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Morrison Foerster advised Casper Studios, an AI services firm that helps companies put Claude to work inside the systems their teams already use, on its acquisition by Ode with Anthropic, an enterprise AI transformation company. Ode helps organizations move AI from experimentation to full-scale deployment, and is focused on the highest-impact growth opportunities. The MoFo team advising Casper Studios was led by emerging companies + venture capital partner Jae Zhou, mergers + acquisitions partner Astrid Menendez-Muharram and corporate associates Benjamin Cohen-Kurzrock and Ryan Gopar Ramirez. The wider team included mergers + acquisitions partner Scott Behar, tax partner Brian Radigan, executive compensation + benefits partner Joshua Lerner and employment + labor partner Michael Schulman.Read <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260820422531/en/Ode-with-Anthropic-Acquires-Casper-Studios-to-Help-Businesses-Get-the-Most-Value-Out-of-AI" target="_blank">Ode’s press release</a>.

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Jae Zhou is a partner in the Emerging Companies + Venture Capital practice. She advises emerging technology companies in all stages of the startup lifecycle, from formation to exit, and provides strategic advice to founders and investors in connection with complex transactions and other corporate issues.Jae was born in Shanghai and is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.

Jae Zhou

Partner

Astrid Menendez-Muharram is a corporate partner in the firm’s Miami office, focusing her practice on advising clients on complex domestic and cross-border transactions, with an emphasis on M&A and private equity transactions, both in the United States and Latin America. Astrid has significant experience representing businesses and private equity funds (and their portfolio companies) in a broad range of corporate matters, including strategic mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, growth equity and venture capital investments, and divestitures.Astrid advises clients in all aspects of their investment activity across a wide variety of industry sectors, including consumer and retail; defense and government services; food and agriculture; aerospace and transportation; business services; technology; and industrials.She speaks fluent Spanish.

Astrid Menendez-Muharram

Benjamin Cohen-Kurzrock is an associate in Morrison Foerster’s San Diego office and a member of the firm’s Emerging Companies + Venture Capital Group.Benjamin’s practice focuses on advising founders, emerging companies, and investors on a range of corporate and transactional matters. He represents clients in venture capital financings across all stages, including preferred equity financings, SAFEs, and convertible note transactions, as well as mergers and acquisitions and corporate governance. He also counsels clients on tax considerations related to equity ownership, liquidity events, and next-generation planning.Prior to joining Morrison Foerster, Benjamin was an attorney at leading international law firms, where he advised on venture financings and strategic transactions, as well as complex private wealth and tax matters, including advanced wealth planning and business succession strategies, and specialized in contested and uncontested federal gift and estate tax matters for the nation’s wealthiest individuals and families.Benjamin was recognized by Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch in America in 2025–26 in Venture Capital Law and in 2023–26 for Tax Litigation & Controversy, Tax, and Trusts & Estates. He was also named a Rising Star by Thomson Reuters Super Lawyers in 2022.Benjamin earned his J.D., magna cum laude, from the University of Houston Law Center and graduated in the top six percent of his class. He also holds an M.S. in accountancy (Dean’s Excellence Award) and a B.B.A. in accounting, summa cum laude, from the University of Houston C. T. Bauer College of Business. Served as a judicial intern to the Honorable David Jones of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Benjamin Cohen-Kurzrock

Associate

Ryan Ramirez is an associate in Morrison Foerster’s San Francisco office and a member of the firm’s Transactions Department.Ryan earned his J.D. from the University of California College of the Law San Francisco, where he served as a tutor for the Legal Education Opportunity Program, a research assistant for the First-Generation Program, and a teaching assistant for Civil Procedure.During law school, Ryan studied abroad at the Università Bocconi in Milan, Italy. He also participated in the UCDC Law Program, where he served as a law clerk at the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee for the Office of Senator Hirono in Washington, D.C. Ryan also spent two summers with Morrison Foerster as a Wetmore Fellow and summer associate in San Francisco.Ryan received his B.A. cum laude in sociology from Sonoma State University.

Ryan Gopar Ramirez

Scott Behar is a partner in Morrison Foerster’s Mergers & Acquisitions Group, focusing on complex transactions in the technology sector. Scott advises public and private companies on a wide range of strategic transactions, including mergers, stock and asset acquisitions, carve-outs, and divestitures. He has a proven track record of negotiating and completing over 100 M&A transactions, totaling more than $35 billion in aggregate value. Scott has represented venture-backed companies in transactions with many of the most common publicly traded and private equity technology acquirers, and also has extensive experience advising serial acquirers in their acquisition strategies. His practice spans a broad range of technology subsectors, including notable work in: <ul><li>Interactive Entertainment & Gaming </li><li>Enterprise software & cloud infrastructure </li><li>Data Analytics, AI & Big Data </li><li>SaaS & E-Commerce </li><li>Fintech </li></ul>Scott has significant cross-border experience, involving target companies in the UK, Canada, Australia, Sweden, Israel, Brazil, Finland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Ireland and Hungary, among others. Prior to joining Morrison Foerster, Scott was an M&A partner at a large Bay Area-based law firm, where his practice also focused on technology transactions.

Scott Behar

Brian Radigan is a partner in the Federal Tax Group at Morrison Foerster. He has a broad tax practice advising U.S. and non-U.S. clients on complex tax structuring and the tax aspects of corporate transactions.Brian advises private equity funds, startup entities, REITs, and established multinational corporations on the tax aspects of mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, cross-border corporate restructurings, and capital markets transactions. He has a particular focus on international tax, helping clients on cross-border structure formation and tax-driven internal reorganization, navigating tax laws across multiple jurisdictions to maximize global tax efficiency.Brian regularly advises emerging companies and venture capital firms on the tax aspects of capital raises, changes to capital structure, and general tax planning, providing strategic insight and tailored tax solutions to drive tax-efficient growth. He also advises financial institutions and corporations on capital markets offerings, financial products, and FATCA compliance.Brian is Recommended for US Taxes: Non-Contentious by Legal 500 US 2024.Prior to joining Morrison Foerster, Brian spent over a decade as a senior in-house tax advisor at General Electric and, more recently, as the global head of tax at New Fortress Energy (NFE). He structured the transition of NFE from an Up-C investment of Fortress Investment Group to a multibillion-dollar, fully public company. In his in-house roles, he served as a trusted advisor to senior executives, founders, and board members on various high-profile transactions, including a $2 billion LNG infrastructure joint venture between NFE and Apollo and a $5.1 billion acquisition by NFE of Hygo Energy Transition and Golar LNG Partners, LP.

Brian Radigan

Josh Lerner is a partner in the Executive Compensation + Benefits Group based in the New York office of Morrison Foerster.Josh advises clients on all matters involving the compensation of senior executives, including employment, change in control, equity compensation, and severance arrangements.He counsels public and private companies on executive compensation issues in a range of corporate transactions, restructurings, and financings. He has experience designing, drafting, and negotiating employment agreements and administering equity incentive plans and awards. He also works regularly with public companies on compensation-related disclosures and corporate governance matters, including Securities Exchange Act of 1934 reports. Josh earned his J.D. from Columbia Law School where he was a senior articles editor of the Columbia Business Law Review.<h4>Representative Matters</h4><ul><li>Snow Software, a technology intelligence platform, on its acquisition by Flexera Software, a data-oriented SaaS solution company.</li><li>U.S. Silica Holdings, a global industrial minerals and logistics leader, in its $1.85 billion sale to entities affiliated with Apollo Global Management.</li><li>Rivian Automotive in the formation of an equally controlled and owned joint venture with Volkswagen Group to create next generation software-defined vehicle (SDV) platforms to be used in both companies’ future electric vehicles.</li><li>Palladium Equity Partners, in the $695 million sale of its majority interest in Trachte, a leading provider of highly engineered protection and control buildings with mission critical applications, to nVent Electric plc, a leading global provider of electrical connection and protection solutions.</li><li>The rock band KISS and its co-founders Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley in the sale of substantially all rights related to KISS to Pophouse Entertainment.</li><li>McGrath RentCorp, leading provider of temporary and permanent space solutions, in its $3.8 billion acquisition by WillScot Mobile Mini Holdings Corp., a leader in innovative temporary space solutions.</li><li>Astellas Pharma in its acquisition of Propella Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company that combines medicinal chemistry with lymphatic targeting to create new oncology drugs.</li><li>SoftBank in connection with its $375 million acquisition of Berkshire Grey, a robotic automation company that went public via a SPAC merger in 2021.</li></ul><ul><li>Grant Thornton, one of America’s largest audit, tax, and advisory firms, in the sale of its Public Sector Advisory practice to Guidehouse, a portfolio company of Veritas Capital and leading global provider of consulting services to the public sector and commercial markets.</li><li>MTY Food Group, a leading franchisor in the North American restaurant industry, in its $200 million acquisition of BBQ Holdings, a franchisor and operator of fast casual dining.</li><li>Odevo AB, a Swedish company and a portfolio company of private equity client Fidelio Capital, in connection with its acquisition of KW Property Management & Consulting, LLC, a Florida-based company that provides property management services to homeowner associations, condominium boards, cooperative boards and townhome communities. </li><li>Tinicum and its portfolio company TSL Engineered Products in the sale of Advantek, a leading provider of highly engineered carrier tape and associated protective packaging products, to Cornell Capital.</li></ul>

Joshua Lerner

Michael Schulman is a partner in the firm’s Global Employment and Labor Group and co-head of the firm’s Washington, D.C. Litigation Department.Michael regularly advises clients in connection with important workforce-related matters, including hiring and negotiating employment agreements for senior executives, sensitive executive separations, internal workplace investigations, employment claims and disputes, and employment issues arising in the context of mergers, acquisitions, bankruptcies and other corporate transactions. Michael is known for using a pragmatic, efficient, and results-oriented approach, focused on achieving his clients’ desired business outcomes.Michael regularly guides clients through complex workforce issues, including, for instance allegations of workplace misconduct; restrictive covenant drafting, enforcement, and strategic evaluation; worker classification and wage-and-hour compliance practices; and the unique issues that arise in a unionized workplace. Michael’s experience covers a broad range of employment and labor laws at the federal, state, and local level, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the National Labor Relations Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, the Defend Trade Secrets Act, and corresponding state and local laws.Michael has unique experience addressing labor and employment matters that arise in connection with corporate transactions, particularly for private equity firms. Michael has represented clients in over 2,000 transactions, including many large-scale multinational mergers, acquisitions, and asset carve-outs. He regularly conducts acquisition-related labor and employment due diligence and advises clients on the employment and workforce integration or separation implications of mergers, acquisitions, sales, and financings.In the litigation context, Michael represents employers in U.S. federal and state court litigation, administrative agency proceedings, and arbitrations arising out of alleged labor and employment law violations. Michael defends employers against actions brought by government agencies, such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Department of Labor, as well as actions initiated by current and former employees. He also prosecutes suits against former employees and their new employers for breach of restrictive covenants.

Michael Schulman

Kristie Espiritu is a tax associate in the San Diego office of Morrison Foerster.Kristie’s experience spans a wide range of transactional, structuring, and advisory tax matters affecting domestic businesses. She regularly advises clients on their tax issues in the areas of joint ventures, partnerships, real estate investment trusts, renewable energy, mergers and acquisitions, and tax- exempt organizations.Kristie is an adjunct professor at USD School of Law, where she teaches classes on partnership tax.

Kristie Espiritu

Arton Falahati is an associate in the San Francisco office of Morrison Foerster and member of the firm’s Executive Compensation + Benefits practice.Prior to joining the firm, Arton was a Legal Intern for a Fortune 500 consumer products company, an investor-owned utility company, as well as a webcasting and virtual event technology company. Arton earned his J.D. from the University of California, Davis School of Law, where he served as Staff Editor for the Business Law Journal and Research Editor for the Social Justice Law Review. He also served as the Vice President of the Middle Eastern North African South Asian Law Students Association. He also holds a Master of Education from University of Maryland, College Park, and a B.A., magna cum laude, from San Jose State University.