Katherine S. Gardner

Katie specializes in corporate partnering, strategic alliances, privacy, technology protection, and licensing and commercialization of intellectual property and technology assets. Katie advises venture capitalists and companies on intellectual property, technology and privacy aspects of venture capital financings and merger and acquisition deals. Katie represents a wide variety of technology and venture-backed companies from AI, cyber security, consumer products, health tech, financial technology, insurance technology, ad tech, software and SaaS industries, as well as disruptive technologies, including blockchain, crypto and web3.  Katie also advises the leading venture capital firms on their investments in these companies.

Katie regularly negotiates commercial and corporate transactions across from the world’s largest technology companies, including Alphabet, Apple, Adobe, Facebook, Amazon, Oracle, Microsoft, Twitter, and SNAP, the largest retailers, including Target and Walmart, telecoms, including Comcast and Verizon, financial companies and banks, including Stripe, Mastercard, American Express, and Visa, major hospitals and health systems, universities, media companies, and other parties in the tech and internet ecosystem.

Katie’s commercial expertise broadly covers the operational aspects of her clients’ businesses, including all inbound acquisition and licensing of intellectual property, services and other digital assets and software and the outbound monetization/distribution/commercialization of her clients products and services – across all industries.  Her decade of experience in the EC/VC tech space enables her to be a strategic thought partner to clients as they design their products and services and navigate strategic deals and partnerships that will accelerate the growth and success of their business.  Katie is an expert in all types of commercial arrangements, including spin-outs, software/SaaS license agreements, intellectual property and confidentiality agreements, reseller agreements, referral agreements, manufacturing and distribution agreements, support and maintenance agreements, promotion and marketing agreements, collaboration and development agreements, evaluation and beta testing agreements, and a variety of other in- and out-licensing deals and services arrangements. Katie is also a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP), and leverages her deep understanding of the international privacy regulation framework to counsel clients on risks and potential with respect to use and exchange of personal data in their business transactions. Katie’s counsel extends to counseling company clients through their venture fundraising rounds up to and beyond an acquisition or public offering.  Katie represents mature companies on their buy side deals, and has negotiated sales of her clients to acquirers in all industries.

Select Deals

• Represented ShopKeep in its acquisition by Lightspeed 
• Represented Playdots in its acquisition by Take-Two 
• Represented BetterCloud in its $75 million Series F financing 
• Represented GIPHY in its acquisition by Facebook 
• Represented CrowdTwist in its acquisition by Oracle 
• Represented Founders Fund as it led the $150 million Series D financing of Faire 
• Represented Gigafund as it led the $9 million Series Seed financing of Luminous 
• Represented Managed by Q in its acquisition by WeWork 
• Represented Valor as it led the financing of BookingPal 
• Represented Censys in its $2.6 million Series Seed financing 
• Represented Andreessen Horowitz in the $300 million Series B financing of Devoted Health 
• Represented Chain in its acquisition by Lightyear Corporation 
• Represented Opcity in its $210 million acquisition by News Corp 
• Represented Dragoneer in the $427 million Series H financing of Slack 
• Represented Peloton in its $325 million Series E financing 
• Represented Moat in its acquisition by Oracle 
• Represented Clarifai in its $20 million Series B financing 
• Represented Complex Media in its acquisition by Verizon Wireless and Hearst
• Represented Recombine in its acquisition by CooperSurgical 
• Represented TapAd in its acquisition by Telenor 
• Represented eXelate in its acquisition by Nielsen