Ever wonder which giant law firms are the ones helping startups grow and realize their full potential? Kruze Consulting did. Kruze is a CPA, tax and consulting firm and they looked at the legal spend at over 140 Seed, Series A, and Series B U.S. startups. All told, these startups spent $18 million dollars on legal services over the course of a year. That breaks down to a yearly legal spend of $77,150 on average per startup, while $38,990 is the median legal spend per startup.
So without further ado, the top five startup Biglaw firm, based on the amount of money billed to startup clients, are:
1) Fenwick & West
2) Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati
3) Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian
4) Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe
5) Perkins Coie
The data was also sliced a slightly different way — by number of startup clients in the analysis — to get these (slightly) different rankings:
1) Fenwick & West
2) Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian
3) Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe
4) Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati
5) Goodwin Procter
Fenwick partner Kristine Di Bacco said her firm focuses on getting startup clients through all stages of their legal needs:
“We are proud of the work we do with early stage startups, from financing to IP to acquisition advice. Startup founders turn to us because they know we can support them from their first financing round to their IPO and beyond.”
No wonder they top the list of go-to firms for so many startups.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).
