Morrison Foerster is an international law firm with lawyers practicing throughout the United States, Asia, and Europe. Click to discover more.

mofo_share_image.jpg

Morrison Foerster

common-default.jpeg

Terms / Notices

Cookies

Privacy Policy

Reporting Hotline

Attorney Advertising

Alumni

  Linkedin

MoFo LinkedIN

  Facebook

MoFo Facebook

YouTube

MoFo Youtube

Morrison Foerster - Footer

MoFo Advises Mountaingate on Strategic Investment in Ignite Visibility

You have not solved the recaptcha challenge yet or session expired, try again.

Email Disclaimer

Disclaimer

Unsolicited e-mails and information sent to Morrison Foerster will not be considered confidential, may be disclosed to others pursuant to our <a href="https://www.mofo.com/about/privacy-policy.html">Privacy Policy</a>, may not receive a response, and do not create an attorney-client relationship with Morrison Foerster. If you are not already a client of Morrison Foerster, do not include any confidential information in this message. Also, please note that our attorneys do not seek to practice law in any jurisdiction in which they are not properly authorized to do so.

Feedback

mofo-logo-2022.svg

People

Capabilities

Resources

About

Culture

Offices

Careers

Stay Connected

Morrison Foerster advised Mountaingate Capital in connection with its strategic investment in Ignite Visibility, a premier digital marketing agency with proven success supporting enterprises of all sizes to drive tangible business results through a broad range of services including website search engine optimization, paid media execution, social media marketing, email marketing, and more.



About Morrison Foerster

people-default-header-desktop.jpg

people-default-header-mobile.jpg

Default Meta Data

Morrison Foerster advised Mountaingate Capital in connection with its strategic investment in Ignite Visibility, a premier digital marketing agency with proven success supporting enterprises of all sizes to drive tangible business results through a broad range of services including website search engine optimization, paid media execution, social media marketing, email marketing, and more.Mountaingate is a Denver-based private equity firm investing in the marketing services, business services, specialty distribution, and specialty manufacturing sectors. It specializes in building and empowering companies with strong growth potential and engaged leadership teams, and its focus on organic growth coupled with its proven customer-centric buy-and-build approach and shared equity ownership with management creates more value for the end customer, while forging stronger, more collaborative, and more successful partnerships with management teams. Mountaingate’s investment in Ignite will accelerate growth organically as well as through selective strategic acquisitions to better serve its clients.The MoFo team advising Mountaingate was led by Denver corporate partner Tyler Sewell, together with San Francisco associate Daigo Takahashi and Denver associate Hardin Cox. The wider team included Washington, D.C. employment + labor partner Michael Schulman, New York executive compensation partner Joshua Lerner, New York tax partner Dave Sturgeon, Boston technology transactions partner Matt Karlyn, and Boston privacy + data security partner Julie O’Neill.Read more in Mountaingate’s <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230207005972/en/Ignite-Visibility-Takes-on-Equity-Investment-to-Fund-Growth" target="_blank">press release</a>.

Sign Up

Tyler Sewell is a corporate partner in the firm’s Denver office, specializing in mergers and acquisitions and general corporate matters.He focuses his practice on advising clients on a broad range of corporate matters, with an emphasis on M&A, private equity transactions and other complex corporate transactions.Tyler advises clients in various transaction structures including leveraged acquisitions, divestitures, asset acquisitions, stock acquisitions, mergers, auctions, and cross-border transactions. He works with buyers and targets in a variety of industries, including technology (semiconductors, software, and Internet), consumer products, e-commerce, healthcare, manufacturing, financial services, transportation and payment processing.Prior to attending law school, he served as a surface warfare officer on the USS Russell and the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.Representative Matters<ul dir="ltr"><li>Astroscale U.S. in its acquisition of assets of Effective Space Solutions R&D</li><li>Aurotech in its acquisition by OpenGate Capital</li><li>Babel Street in its acquisition of certain assets of Dunami</li><li>Betterer Foods in its sale of RightRice to The Planting Hope Company</li><li>The Building People in its acquisition of InfoNarus</li><li>California Cryobank in its acquisition of Donor Egg Bank</li><li>CBRE Group in its acquisition of Tax Credit Group</li><li>Continental Mapping Consultants in its acquisition by Bluestone Investment Partners</li><li>Definitive Logic in its acquisition of Digital Mobilizations</li><li>Envision Healthcare Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: EVHC), its operating subsidiaries and affiliates in multiple transactions, including the acquisitions of Guardian Healthcare Group; Life Line Ambulance Service; Phoenix Physicians; Emergency Medical Associates of New Jersey; Scottsdale Emergency Associates; Questcare Medical Services Emergency Physicians Medical Group</li><li>eTelligent Group in its strategic investment from IMB Partners</li><li dir="ltr">Excellere Partners in its investment in Concord Technologies</li><li>Genesis Water in a Series A investment</li><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>Intelligent Software Solutions in acquisition of Xpect Software</li><li>Iovation in its acquisition by TransUnion</li><li>iPharma in its acquisition by Kindeva</li><li>KRG Capital Partners in multiple transactions, including, its acquisition of F.A. Richard & Co., its sale of Avizent to Abry and its sale of Tronair to Levine Leichtman</li><li>LinQuest in its acquisitions of Hellebore Consulting Group and Capability Analysis & Measurement Organization, LLC (CAMO)</li><li>L3Harris in its acquisition of Viasat Inc.’s Tactical Data Links (TDL) product line</li><li>McKesson Corporation in its acquisitions of Vantage Oncology LLC and Biologics, Inc.</li><li>Minerva Engineering in its acquisition by ManTech International</li><li>Mountaingate Capital in its strategic investment in Ignite Visibility and Ignite Visibility's acquisition of Integrated Digital Strategies</li><li>Novaria Group in its acquisition of Fitz Manufacturing Industries</li><li>onsemi in its acquisition of GT Advanced Technologies</li><li>RH in its acquisition of Waterworks</li><li>Sedgwick Claim Services in its acquisition of Managed Care Advisors</li><li>ShowingTime in its sale to Zillow Group</li><li>Sigma Defense Systems in its acquisition of the business and IP of Sub U Systems</li><li>SoftBank Corporation in multiple transactions, including its acquisition of a controlling interest in Brightstar Corp. and its sale of its controlling stake in Finnish gaming company Supercell Oy to Tencent Holdings</li><li>Splunk, Inc. in its acquisition of Caspida, Inc.</li><li>Telesis in its acquisition of Belcan</li><li>Tomkins Ltd. in multiple transactions, including its acquisition of Du-Tex; its divestiture of Dexter Axle to Sterling Partners and its sale of Aquatic US Holdings to Sterling Partners</li><li>Unilever in its acquisition of Dollar Shave Club</li><li>VariQ in its sale to Capgemi</li><li>Westfire, Inc. in its sale to Tyco SimplexGrinnell</li><li>Yahoo! in multiple transactions, including its acquisition of Brightroll</li><li>zipLogix in its acquisition by Lone Wolf Real Estate Technologies</li></ul>

Tyler Sewell

Partner

Daigo Takahashi is a corporate associate in Morrison Foerster’s San Francisco office.Daigo focuses his practice on U.S. and cross-border mergers and acquisitions, divestitures and other strategic transactions. Daigo has advised U.S., Japanese and other international clients across a variety of industries, including technology, semiconductor, consumer products, manufacturing and healthcare/life sciences.Prior to joining Morrison Foerster’s San Francisco office, Daigo was an associate in the Firm’s Tokyo office. Daigo received his J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, where he was an editor of the Hastings Law Journal. While at Hastings, he served as a judicial extern to the Honorable Joseph C. Spero, Magistrate Judge, at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. He received his B.A., magna cum laude, in Political Science and International Studies from the University of California, Irvine, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.Daigo has been recognized by The Best Lawyers in Japan in its “Ones to Watch” category for Corporate and M&A Law.Daigo is bilingual in English and Japanese.

Daigo Takahashi

Associate

Michael Schulman is a partner in the firm’s Global Employment and Labor Group. Michael has extensive employment and labor law experience, regularly advising clients in connection with workforce related counseling, investigation, transactional, and litigation matters. Michael represents clients in a broad range of employment and labor matters using a pragmatic, efficient, and results-oriented approach. Michael regularly guides clients through complex workforce issues, including for instance, key executive and employee and sensitive separations; responsibly and effectively addressing allegations of workplace misconduct; restrictive covenant drafting, enforcement, and strategic evaluation; and worker classification and wage and hour compliance practices. 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, and related 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 multi-national 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 has defended 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 has also prosecuted suits against former employees and their new employers for breach of restrictive covenants.

Michael Schulman

Josh is a partner in the New York office of Morrison Foerster and co-chair of the firm’s Executive Compensation practice. 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

Co-Chair of Executive Compensation Practice

David Sturgeon is a partner in Morrison Foerster’s Federal Tax practice.Dave advises clients on a broad range of complex business transactions, including domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, spin-offs and other divestitures, as well as financings, refinancings, restructurings and other business transactions.He earned his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was a member of the Chicago Journal of International Law, and received his Master of Laws in taxation from New York University School of Law.Prior to joining Morrison Foerster, Dave was an associate at a law firm in New York, where he represented public companies, financial institutions, private equity clients and other sponsor entities across industries in an extensive range of business transactions.

Dave Sturgeon

Matt Karlyn has 25 years of experience in working with companies in the healthcare, pharmaceutical, medical device, and technology industries on a wide range of commercial life sciences, licensing, and technology transactions. His clients range from Fortune 100 companies to start-ups, and he regularly advises companies on matters involving IP commercialization, complex collaboration transactions, licensing initiatives, subscription-based economics, and business transactions related to the procurement, development, commercialization, and use of technology and life sciences products. He has also worked with a number of clients on corporate transactions including mergers and acquisitions, as well as private equity and venture capital financing.Matt is ranked Band 1 by Chambers USA for Intellectual Property: Licensing in Massachusetts. Clients in Chambers describe Matt as: “accessible and engaged, and he is really focused on getting the right answer for us."<h4>Life Sciences</h4>Life sciences clients, including pharmaceutical, medical device, and healthcare companies, rely on Matt for his breadth of knowledge in licensing, collaboration, and commercialization strategies across a wide range of transactions designed to strengthen operations and maximize value. Matt’s clients come from sectors across the global economy and include emerging companies, privately held companies, and many of the world’s biggest brands.Matt has broad experience with commercial transactions and agreements in the life sciences space, including:<ul><li>Intellectual property and technology licenses</li><li>Collaboration and development transactions</li><li>Commercialization agreements</li><li>Supply and manufacturing transactions</li></ul><h4>Technology</h4>Matt regularly advises on the use of technology in business, pricing strategies, and market terms across a wide variety of technology transactions that benefit clients both large and small. He has extensive experience negotiating a wide range of transactions, including:<ul><li>Enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management licensing and implementation transactions</li><li>Cloud-based transactions including software-as-a-services, platform-as-a-service, and infrastructure-as-a-service.</li><li>Software licensing</li><li>Supply chain and procurement deals</li></ul>Additionally, Matt has worked on many of the largest outsourcing transactions in the United States, representing numerous Fortune 100 companies on information technology, business process, finance and accounting, facilities services, and other outsourcing transactions.Matt is a frequent author and speaker on topics pertaining to drafting and negotiating commercial technology, outsourcing, and licensing transactions. He has published over 25 articles (including chapters in two books), given over 175 presentations on licensing, technology, outsourcing, and data security, and is the co-author of A Guide to IT Contracting: Checklists, Tools, and Techniques.Matt is currently co-chair of the Legal and Regulatory policy group at the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council. He served as chair of the New England Chapter of the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals, and served for five years on the board of directors of Julie’s Family Learning Program, a wellness program for mothers and children in South Boston.

Matt Karlyn

Clients seek out Julie because of her practical advice on cutting-edge issues at the intersection of privacy and consumer protection laws. She provides clients with practical solutions to compliance challenges around a wide variety of both online and offline privacy issues, including tracking, interest-based advertising, geo-targeting and other mobile tracking, personalization, and cross-device tracking. Recognized in The Legal 500 US 2014, 2016, 2019, and 2020 and Chambers USA 2021 for her exceptional legal work, her clients praise her saying, “She is really good at giving practical, targeted advice and taking stock of what the risk profile of the client is, so that the advice is holistic.” (Chambers USA 2021).Julie provides clients with creative and practical advice on meeting the requirements of state and federal privacy laws, including the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTC), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). She crafts guidelines and compliance programs for clients’ collection, use, and disclosure of personal information in diverse contexts and throughout the life cycle of their initiatives, such as for connected products (the Internet of Things) and mobile services. She also drafts privacy and cookies policies, online service terms of use, agreements involving online and offline advertising and marketing practices, and agreements concerning a variety of data uses. In addition, Julie helps clients assess and manage privacy risks, including in connection with mergers, acquisitions, and other strategic transactions.Julie creates compliance programs for clients’ use of a wide variety of channels for communicating with and marketing to consumers, including email, telephone, text message, and fax, both in the United States and around the world. She works with clients to develop their social media strategies and to clear their social media content. She also reviews advertising in both traditional and new media for compliance with applicable laws, including Section 5 of the FTC Act and various FTC rules and guides. In addition, she works with clients to structure, market, and implement their sweepstakes, contests, and other promotions in compliance with applicable laws.As a former FTC staff attorney, Julie regularly defends companies in investigations by the FTC and before data protection authorities around the world.<h4>Representative Experience</h4><ul><li>A company that creates online software used by schools in an FTC investigation of alleged COPPA violations.</li><li>A consumer services company investigated by the Korean data protection authority for alleged privacy violations</li><li>A manufacturer in connection with a challenge of its environmental advertising claims by the FTC </li><li>An advertising services company in an investigation of alleged privacy-related violations of the FTC Act</li><li>An online provider of entertainment services in an FTC investigation of alleged COPPA violations</li><li>A beverage company in an FTC investigation of alleged COPPA violations</li></ul>Before attending law school, Julie was a Peace Corps volunteer in The Gambia, West Africa.