Richard G. J. McDerby
Partner
Rich McDerby is a venture capital and emerging companies partner, and leads Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP’s San Francisco office. His practice spans the full array of corporate and commercial matters that midsize businesses and emerging growth companies encounter, including mergers and acquisitions; private equity and venture capital financing; and business transactions, as well as outside general counsel services. Guiding business owners and senior managers to develop transaction strategies, Mr. McDerby provides practical business advice, not just rigid legal advice, to his clients. Skilled in advising startup and venture-backed companies through all stages of the complex and evolving life cycle, from formation and funding through strategic sales, he has acted for midsize companies in large, complex mergers, and acquisitions. Mr. McDerby has also successfully managed teams of attorneys working on time-critical transactions and has worked on transactions across North America, as well as in England and Australia. Mr. McDerby obtained his J.D. from Dalhousie University Schulich School of Law and his BA in Political Science from University of New Brunswick. Prior to joining Manatt, he was a founding partner at a San Francisco-based boutique business law firm serving emerging growth and midsize businesses in corporate and commercial transactions. Earlier, Mr. McDerby ran a law firm in San Francisco and, prior to that, worked as a corporate/commercial group attorney for a top-tier national law firm in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Mr. McDerby has represented Skybound Entertainment in its substantial investment in Mega Cat Studios. In financing transactions, he represented Rocket Lawyer, the digital legal services provider, in its major growth capital financing of $223 million led by Vista Credit Partners. In sell-side engagements, Mr. McDerby represented a software company in the sale of a 75% stake in the company to an Atlanta-based private equity firm in a transaction with a total value of $37 million. The transaction included the restructuring of the capital structure of the company and advising the company’s management team with respect to rolling $10 million of equity into Series A preferred stock.
