Fenwick & West LLP represented Elevation Partners, a $1.9 billion private equity firm, in its recently announced investment in San Francisco, CA-based Yelp! Inc., a website that connects people with great local businesses. Yelp drew an audience of more than 26 million visitors in December 2009 and more than nine million local reviews by Yelpers, making Yelp the leading U.S. local guide for real word of mouth on everything from boutiques and mechanics to restaurants and dentists.
Elevation Partners has agreed to make a $25 million investment in Yelp through the purchase of Series E preferred stock. Elevation Partners will also seek to increase its total investment in Yelp up to $100 million through a planned purchase of shares from vested employees and other eligible shareholders.
Additional information about the transaction can be obtained from the Elevation Partners website http://www.elevation.com.
The Fenwick & West transaction team included corporate attorneys Mark Stevens, Greg Roussel, David Michaels, Brian Hicks, Kristine Di Bacco, and John Liu; licensing attorneys Stefano Quintini, and Genelle Ng antitrust attorney Mark Ostrau, patent attorney Bob Hulse and tax attorney Michael Solomon.
Fenwick & West provides comprehensive legal services to technology and life sciences clients of national and international prominence. The firm is ranked by Mergerstat as one of the top 25 U.S. Private Equity legal advisors in 2009, by MergerMarket as one of the top five technology M&A practices in the U.S. and by International Tax Review as one of the "world's leading tax planning" and "tax transactional practices," one of only three firms in the U.S. to appear in both the planning and transactional categories with a First Tier rating.
Mark Stevens
Partner, Corporate Group and Intellectual Property Group
Co-Chair, Private Equity Group
650.335.7257
mstevens@fenwick.com
Greg Roussel
Partner, Corporate Group
650.335.7156
groussel@fenwick.com