DLA Piper wins China award
DLA PIPER has been named “Counselor of the Year” by Top Capital, China’s leading investment and high technology publication. The award from Top Capital is DLA Piper’s second award
DLA PIPER has been named “Counselor of the Year” by Top Capital, China’s leading investment and high technology publication.
The award from Top Capital is DLA Piper’s second award for outstanding achievements in China’s venture capital and private equity sector in 2006. DLA Piper already won Zero2IPO’s “2006 Venture Capital Lead Legal Advisor Award”.
According to both Zero2IPO and Top Capital’s independent rankings, DLA Piper is the leading venture capital and private equity law firm in China. The rankings were based on deals closed, dollars deployed and overall market reputation.
Rocky Lee, partner and head of DLA Piper’s venture and private equity practice in China, received the award on behalf of the firm.
“This award is recognition of our corporate and finance practices in China, which can truly service the needs of institutional clients and Chinese growth companies,” Lee said.
Nick Seddon, Asia managing director of DLA Piper, said the award was a significant achievement for the firm, which had quickly become a leader in the field.
“It’s a recognition that in 18 months we’ve gone from having no real venture capital practice in China to having the leading venture capital practice in China.
“The team that works on this has worked massively hard over the last 12 months and they’ve been putting in ridiculous hours so they really deserve this,” Seddon told Lawyers Weekly.
Seddon predicts China will be a strong market for the firm in the coming years.
“It’s a little like a repeat of the heady days of Silicon Valley. You’ve got a lot of new entrepreneurial businesses, which aren’t state-owned and never have been state-owned, and they are now coming to the market for first round funding,” he said.
“We see that growing significantly over the coming years and these businesses will mature, go through second round funding and move towards IPOs and so we see it as a very rich stream of work going forward,” he said.