Fast-growing German tech law firm YPOG has hired a team from Withers to open its first international office in London’s King’s Cross.
YPOG, which topped Pitchbook’s rankings as the most active VC advisor in the DACH region in Q2, said the launch was the latest step in its aim to become “Europe’s go-to innovation partner”.
“After expanding to Munich last year, opening an office in the UK puts us at the heart of European innovation, and is our first move to building a truly pan-European brand,” said YPOG co-managing partner, Benjamin Ullrich. “In doing so, it was clear we needed a market-leading team with deep sector experience, and with experience of growing and scaling both clients and YPOG internationally.”
Members of the incoming team built tech and VC law boutique JAG Shaw Baker before it was absorbed by Withers in 2018 to create Withers Tech, which has gone on to become one of the most active VC teams in the UK and Europe.
The group is led by JAG co-founder James Shaw and over the past 10 years has worked with clients including Wise and Revolut as well as funds like Stride.VC, Phoenix Court and Index Ventures.
“The legal sector is at a huge inflexion point, globally,” Shaw said. “Emerging technology solutions are challenging law as a service and proving to be a real force to reckon with. If law firms do not evolve, they will lose talent, lose clients and struggle to survive. This is why we felt it was the right time to seize the opportunity and build something new – a firm that combines market-leading expertise with tech solutions from Europe to tackle head-on the dominance of the US tech giants.”
Alongside Shaw the group includes partners Iain Cockburn, Ben Williams, Andrew Gay and Susanna Stanfield as well as newly-minted partner Mary Harley and Tina Baker, another JAG co-founder who was most recently a consultant at Withers. According to a YPOG LinkedIn post they are joined by a team of Withers associates and a data scientist.
YPOG said the team had recently left Withers intending to build a Gen AI-powered law firm from scratch before deciding to join YPOG. The firm was originally founded in 2017 as SMP and has since grown to more than 230 professionals across four German offices, including the Munich base it opened last September to tap into Europe’s largest deep tech university ecosystem around UnternehmerTUM.
YPOG’s practices span corporate, fund structuring, tax, IP/IT, financial regulatory, litigation and compliance.
The firm said it had advised on more than 100 deals over the past year and worked with clients including Helsing, Bullish and HV Capital. It operates on what it describes as a “lawyer-technologist” model that includes a process-automated platform and an in-house AI team that works with its lawyers to create tools to improve speed and transparency.
“Over the last eight years, we’ve seen YPOG grow into a brand that is synonymous with tech law in Europe,” Shaw said. “The firm invests heavily in technology experts to help solve legal problems. Most importantly, they think like us, which is why joining forces with YPOG makes sense. We want to ensure that YPOG is the name on the lips of every global founder, entrepreneur, investor and intermediary with a nexus to Europe.”
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