Michael Russell
Partner
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Highly Regarded and Experienced M&A Practitioner
A co-leader of the firm’s M&A practice, Mike has extensive experience representing public and private companies and investors in both domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions and other complex strategic transactions.
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Technology and Life Sciences Industry Expertise
His clients span numerous technology and life sciences industry sectors, including SaaS, Internet, data, cybersecurity, mobility, fintech, digital media, gaming, e-commerce, consumer products, semiconductor and semiconductor equipment, biotech, and digital health.
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Trusted Advisor to Leading Companies
Mike has represented leading technology companies in numerous strategic transactions, including Dolby, Fitbit, Lyft, Micron, Slack, and Twitter.
Mike Russell is a corporate and securities partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where he co-leads the firm’s M&A practice. He has 25 years of experience representing clients in a broad range of complex corporate and securities transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, joint ventures, public and private equity and debt offerings, tender and exchange offers, corporate restructurings, venture capital financings, and other strategic transactions. In particular, Mike’s practice focuses on the representation of public and private companies and investors on both the buy and sell sides of domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions. He advises clients across numerous technology and life sciences industry sectors, including SaaS, Internet, data, cybersecurity, mobility, semiconductor and semiconductor equipment, fintech, digital media, gaming, e-commerce, consumer products, biotech, and digital health.
Prior to rejoining the firm in 2021, Mike was a partner in Goodwin Procter’s Silicon Valley office, where he was a member of the Technology group and M&A/Corporate Governance practice. He was previously a member of Wilson Sonsini’s corporate and securities practice for 18 years, joining the firm in 1998 and becoming a partner in 2007, and served on the firm’s Hiring Committee and Member Nominating Committee. Earlier in his career, Mike was a deputy city attorney in the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office.
Experience
Mike Russell is a corporate and securities partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where he co-leads the firm’s M&A practice. He has 25 years of experience representing clients in a broad range of complex corporate and securities transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, joint ventures, public and private equity and debt offerings, tender and exchange offers, corporate restructurings, venture capital financings, and other strategic transactions. In particular, Mike’s practice focuses on the representation of public and private companies and investors on both the buy and sell sides of domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions. He advises clients across numerous technology and life sciences industry sectors, including SaaS, Internet, data, cybersecurity, mobility, semiconductor and semiconductor equipment, fintech, digital media, gaming, e-commerce, consumer products, biotech, and digital health.
Prior to rejoining the firm in 2021, Mike was a partner in Goodwin Procter’s Silicon Valley office, where he was a member of the Technology group and M&A/Corporate Governance practice. He was previously a member of Wilson Sonsini’s corporate and securities practice for 18 years, joining the firm in 1998 and becoming a partner in 2007, and served on the firm’s Hiring Committee and Member Nominating Committee. Earlier in his career, Mike was a deputy city attorney in the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office.
Education
- J.D., University of Michigan Law School, 1993
- B.A., Political Science, University of Michigan, 1990With Distinction
Admissions
- State Bar of California
- U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California
Credentials
Education
- J.D., University of Michigan Law School, 1993
- B.A., Political Science, University of Michigan, 1990With Distinction
Admissions
- State Bar of California
- U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California
Select Transactions*
Representative Buy-Side Transactions:
- Affirm in its acquisition of Sweep and in an asset purchase from a Canadian company
- Aledade in its acquisition of Medical Advantage
- Ambarella in its $307.5 million acquisition of Oculii
- Blackline in its $240 million acquisition of FourQ
- Carbon3D in its acquisition of ParaMatters
- CDK in its acquisition of AVRS
- Dolby in its $429 million acquisition of the licensing business of General Electric and its acquisitions of THEO Labs, Real Eyes Media, and Millicast, and Via (a Dolby subsidiary) in its acquisition of MPEGLA
- Everly Health in its acquisition of Natalist
- Faro in its acquisition of SiteScape
- Fitbit in its acquisitions of Coin, Pebble, Twine Health, and Vector Watch
- Game Closure in its acquisition of Chobo Labs
- GoFundMe in its acquisition of Classy
- Guidewire in its $275 million acquisition of Cyence and its acquisition of HazardHub
- Health Catalyst in its acquisition of Able Health
- Informatica in its acquisition of StrikeIron
- Kulicke & Soffa in its acquisition of Uniqarta
- Lyft in its acquisitions of Flexdrive Services, Halo Cars, and PBSC Urban Solutions, and in a strategic transaction with Gett
- Marqeta in its $275 million acquisition of Power Finance and in its strategic investment in ConnexPay
- Marlin Equity Partners in its $160 million acquisition of three business units from Compuware
- Micron in its $2.5 billion acquisition of Elpida out of bankruptcy in Japan; its $1.3 billion acquisition of Numonyx from Intel, ST Microelectronics, and Francisco Partners; and its $400 million acquisition of Inotera from Qimonda AG
- Mixbook in an asset purchase from WedPics
- Netlify in its acquisitions of Gatsby and Stackbit
- Newsela in its acquisition of Smartest EDU (Formative)
- Nextdoor in its acquisition of Pixel Labs (Hoodline)
- project44 in its $255 million acquisition of Convey and its acquisition of ClearMetal
- Qualtrics in its acquisition of Statwing
- Rubrik in its acquisition of Datos IO
- Sift in its acquisition of Xomi (Chargeback)
- Slack in its acquisitions of Rimeto, Astro Technology, and the Missions business from Robots & Pencils, and in an acqui-hire transaction with Turbine Labs
- Snowflake in its acquisition of Numeracy
- Stripe in its acquisition of Bouncer
- Sumo Logic in its acquisitions of JASK Labs, DF Labs, and Sensu
- TiVo in its $135 million acquisition of Digitalsmiths and its acquisitions of TRA Global and the ZincTV business from ZeeVee
- Twilio in an asset purchase from Vai Technologies
- Twitter in its $533 million acquisition of TellApart and its acquisitions of Afterlive.TV, Apps & Zerts, Bounty Labs (Periscope), Cardspring, Gnip, Madbits, Namo Media, Stellar Aurora (Quill Chat), The Niche Project, and Whetlab
- Udemy in its acquisition of CorpU
- Zendesk in its acquisition of Smooch
Representative Sell-Side Transactions:
- AdLast (URX) in an acqui-hire transaction with Pinterest
- Applied MicroStructures in its acquisition by SPTS Technologies, a subsidiary of Orbotech
- Art19 in its acquisition by Amazon
- AutoReturn (Tegsco) in its acquisition by Nexa Equity
- BioLucid in its acquisition by Sharecare
- Bonsai in its acquisition by Microsoft
- Chariot in its acquisition by Ford Smart Mobility
- Cloud9 IDE in its acquisition by Amazon
- Combangio in its acquisition by Kala Pharmaceuticals
- ConnectedYard in its acquisition by Hayward
- Cysiv in its acquisition by Forescout
- DocFox in its acquisition by nCino
- DogVacay in its acquisition by A Place for Rover
- Elements (Billeto) in its acquisition by Circle
- Escher Reality in its acquisition by Niantic
- ForgeRock in its $2.3 billion acquisition by Thoma Bravo
- Ginger in its merger with Headspace
- HealthDataInsights in its $400 million acquisition by HMS Holdings
- Humu in its acquisition by Perceptyx
- Los Gatos Research in its acquisition by ABB
- Luxe Valet in an asset sale to Volvo
- Marlin Equity Partners in the sale of its portfolio company Emptoris to IBM
- Mentor Corporation in the $463 million sale of its Surgical Urology and Clinical and Consumer Healthcare business segments to Coloplast
- Micron Technology in the sale of its wafer manufacturing facility in Japan to Tower Semiconductor Ltd. and the sale of its wafer manufacturing facility in Israel to Intel
- Moovit in its $900 million acquisition by Intel
- Pillpack in its $1.0 billion acquisition by Amazon
- Qualtrics in its $8.0 billion acquisition by SAP
- Raxium in its acquisition by Google
- rideOS in its acquisition by Gopuff
- Rundeck in its $100 million acquisition by PagerDuty
- ScaleArc in an asset sale to Ignite Technologies, a portfolio company of ESW Capital
- Segment in its $3.2 billion acquisition by Twilio
- Signal Sciences in its $775 million acquisition by Fastly
- Soha Systems in its acquisition by Akamai
- SolarWorld Americas in an asset sale to SunPower
- SpotOn in the $100 million sale of assets related to its sports and entertainment business to Shift4
- Strategic Data Corporation in its acquisition by Fox Interactive Media
- Tiny Garage Labs in an asset sale to Google
- Twitter in the $1.05 billion sale of its MoPub business to AppLovin
- Volterra in its $500 million acquisition by F5
- World Wide Packets in its $285 million acquisition by Ciena Corporation
- Xapo in the sale of its institutional bitcoin custody business to Coinbase
- Yaypay in its acquisition by Quadient
- Zoomer in an asset sale to EatStreet and in an acqui-hire transaction with Grubhub
Representative Investor-Side Transactions:
- Bain Capital in the sale of its portfolio company ScoutIt to Market Track
- Benchmark Capital in the sale of numerous portfolio companies, including Duo Security in its $2.35 billion acquisition by Cisco, Glassdoor in its $1.2 billion acquisition by Recruit Holdings, Quip in its $750 million acquisition by Salesforce, Zenly in its $200 million acquisition by Snap, Edmodo in its $137.5 million acquisition by NetDragon, RightScale in its acquisition by Flexera, Sailthru in its acquisition by Campaign Monitor, and Euclid in its acquisition by WeWork
- DCM Ventures in the sale of numerous portfolio companies, including Origin in its $100 million acquisition by Stratasys, LearnZillion in its acquisition by Weld North Education, Wepow in its acquisition by OutMatch, Outmatch in its acquisition by Rubicon, Grin in its merger with Yellow, and Rainberry (fka BitTorrent) in its acquisition by Tron
- General Catalyst in the sale of numerous portfolio companies, including TrueMotion in its acquisition by Cambridge Mobile Telematics, WayUp in its acquisition by Yello, Truss in its acquisition by Avison Young, and Dubsmash in its acquisition by Reddit
- Lightspeed Venture Partners in the sale of numerous portfolio companies, including Qubole in its acquisition by Idera, Giphy in its acquisition by Facebook, Affirmed Networks in its acquisition by Microsoft, Applatix in its acquisition by Intuit, and Cheddar in its $200 million acquisition by Altice
- Lowercase Capital in the sale of numerous portfolio companies, including Dynasty in its acquisition by AppFolio
- Redpoint Ventures in the sale of its portfolio company Verbify for $114 million to Snap
- REV in the sale of numerous portfolio companies, including Recorded Futurein its $780 million acquisition by Insight Partners and Quid in its acquisition by Netbase
- Ribbit Capital in the $7.1 billion sale of its portfolio company Credit Karma to Intuit
- True Ventures in numerous transactions, including the merger of its portfolio company OpenROV with Spoondrift (now Sofar)
Representative Joint Ventures:
- Ribbit Capital in its financial services joint venture with Walmart
- Woodward in its joint venture with General Electric for fuel systems for large commercial aircraft jet engines
* Includes experience at another firm prior to returning to Wilson Sonsini in 2021.
Matters
Select Transactions*
Representative Buy-Side Transactions:
- Affirm in its acquisition of Sweep and in an asset purchase from a Canadian company
- Aledade in its acquisition of Medical Advantage
- Ambarella in its $307.5 million acquisition of Oculii
- Blackline in its $240 million acquisition of FourQ
- Carbon3D in its acquisition of ParaMatters
- CDK in its acquisition of AVRS
- Dolby in its $429 million acquisition of the licensing business of General Electric and its acquisitions of THEO Labs, Real Eyes Media, and Millicast, and Via (a Dolby subsidiary) in its acquisition of MPEGLA
- Everly Health in its acquisition of Natalist
- Faro in its acquisition of SiteScape
- Fitbit in its acquisitions of Coin, Pebble, Twine Health, and Vector Watch
- Game Closure in its acquisition of Chobo Labs
- GoFundMe in its acquisition of Classy
- Guidewire in its $275 million acquisition of Cyence and its acquisition of HazardHub
- Health Catalyst in its acquisition of Able Health
- Informatica in its acquisition of StrikeIron
- Kulicke & Soffa in its acquisition of Uniqarta
- Lyft in its acquisitions of Flexdrive Services, Halo Cars, and PBSC Urban Solutions, and in a strategic transaction with Gett
- Marqeta in its $275 million acquisition of Power Finance and in its strategic investment in ConnexPay
- Marlin Equity Partners in its $160 million acquisition of three business units from Compuware
- Micron in its $2.5 billion acquisition of Elpida out of bankruptcy in Japan; its $1.3 billion acquisition of Numonyx from Intel, ST Microelectronics, and Francisco Partners; and its $400 million acquisition of Inotera from Qimonda AG
- Mixbook in an asset purchase from WedPics
- Netlify in its acquisitions of Gatsby and Stackbit
- Newsela in its acquisition of Smartest EDU (Formative)
- Nextdoor in its acquisition of Pixel Labs (Hoodline)
- project44 in its $255 million acquisition of Convey and its acquisition of ClearMetal
- Qualtrics in its acquisition of Statwing
- Rubrik in its acquisition of Datos IO
- Sift in its acquisition of Xomi (Chargeback)
- Slack in its acquisitions of Rimeto, Astro Technology, and the Missions business from Robots & Pencils, and in an acqui-hire transaction with Turbine Labs
- Snowflake in its acquisition of Numeracy
- Stripe in its acquisition of Bouncer
- Sumo Logic in its acquisitions of JASK Labs, DF Labs, and Sensu
- TiVo in its $135 million acquisition of Digitalsmiths and its acquisitions of TRA Global and the ZincTV business from ZeeVee
- Twilio in an asset purchase from Vai Technologies
- Twitter in its $533 million acquisition of TellApart and its acquisitions of Afterlive.TV, Apps & Zerts, Bounty Labs (Periscope), Cardspring, Gnip, Madbits, Namo Media, Stellar Aurora (Quill Chat), The Niche Project, and Whetlab
- Udemy in its acquisition of CorpU
- Zendesk in its acquisition of Smooch
Representative Sell-Side Transactions:
- AdLast (URX) in an acqui-hire transaction with Pinterest
- Applied MicroStructures in its acquisition by SPTS Technologies, a subsidiary of Orbotech
- Art19 in its acquisition by Amazon
- AutoReturn (Tegsco) in its acquisition by Nexa Equity
- BioLucid in its acquisition by Sharecare
- Bonsai in its acquisition by Microsoft
- Chariot in its acquisition by Ford Smart Mobility
- Cloud9 IDE in its acquisition by Amazon
- Combangio in its acquisition by Kala Pharmaceuticals
- ConnectedYard in its acquisition by Hayward
- Cysiv in its acquisition by Forescout
- DocFox in its acquisition by nCino
- DogVacay in its acquisition by A Place for Rover
- Elements (Billeto) in its acquisition by Circle
- Escher Reality in its acquisition by Niantic
- ForgeRock in its $2.3 billion acquisition by Thoma Bravo
- Ginger in its merger with Headspace
- HealthDataInsights in its $400 million acquisition by HMS Holdings
- Humu in its acquisition by Perceptyx
- Los Gatos Research in its acquisition by ABB
- Luxe Valet in an asset sale to Volvo
- Marlin Equity Partners in the sale of its portfolio company Emptoris to IBM
- Mentor Corporation in the $463 million sale of its Surgical Urology and Clinical and Consumer Healthcare business segments to Coloplast
- Micron Technology in the sale of its wafer manufacturing facility in Japan to Tower Semiconductor Ltd. and the sale of its wafer manufacturing facility in Israel to Intel
- Moovit in its $900 million acquisition by Intel
- Pillpack in its $1.0 billion acquisition by Amazon
- Qualtrics in its $8.0 billion acquisition by SAP
- Raxium in its acquisition by Google
- rideOS in its acquisition by Gopuff
- Rundeck in its $100 million acquisition by PagerDuty
- ScaleArc in an asset sale to Ignite Technologies, a portfolio company of ESW Capital
- Segment in its $3.2 billion acquisition by Twilio
- Signal Sciences in its $775 million acquisition by Fastly
- Soha Systems in its acquisition by Akamai
- SolarWorld Americas in an asset sale to SunPower
- SpotOn in the $100 million sale of assets related to its sports and entertainment business to Shift4
- Strategic Data Corporation in its acquisition by Fox Interactive Media
- Tiny Garage Labs in an asset sale to Google
- Twitter in the $1.05 billion sale of its MoPub business to AppLovin
- Volterra in its $500 million acquisition by F5
- World Wide Packets in its $285 million acquisition by Ciena Corporation
- Xapo in the sale of its institutional bitcoin custody business to Coinbase
- Yaypay in its acquisition by Quadient
- Zoomer in an asset sale to EatStreet and in an acqui-hire transaction with Grubhub
Representative Investor-Side Transactions:
- Bain Capital in the sale of its portfolio company ScoutIt to Market Track
- Benchmark Capital in the sale of numerous portfolio companies, including Duo Security in its $2.35 billion acquisition by Cisco, Glassdoor in its $1.2 billion acquisition by Recruit Holdings, Quip in its $750 million acquisition by Salesforce, Zenly in its $200 million acquisition by Snap, Edmodo in its $137.5 million acquisition by NetDragon, RightScale in its acquisition by Flexera, Sailthru in its acquisition by Campaign Monitor, and Euclid in its acquisition by WeWork
- DCM Ventures in the sale of numerous portfolio companies, including Origin in its $100 million acquisition by Stratasys, LearnZillion in its acquisition by Weld North Education, Wepow in its acquisition by OutMatch, Outmatch in its acquisition by Rubicon, Grin in its merger with Yellow, and Rainberry (fka BitTorrent) in its acquisition by Tron
- General Catalyst in the sale of numerous portfolio companies, including TrueMotion in its acquisition by Cambridge Mobile Telematics, WayUp in its acquisition by Yello, Truss in its acquisition by Avison Young, and Dubsmash in its acquisition by Reddit
- Lightspeed Venture Partners in the sale of numerous portfolio companies, including Qubole in its acquisition by Idera, Giphy in its acquisition by Facebook, Affirmed Networks in its acquisition by Microsoft, Applatix in its acquisition by Intuit, and Cheddar in its $200 million acquisition by Altice
- Lowercase Capital in the sale of numerous portfolio companies, including Dynasty in its acquisition by AppFolio
- Redpoint Ventures in the sale of its portfolio company Verbify for $114 million to Snap
- REV in the sale of numerous portfolio companies, including Recorded Futurein its $780 million acquisition by Insight Partners and Quid in its acquisition by Netbase
- Ribbit Capital in the $7.1 billion sale of its portfolio company Credit Karma to Intuit
- True Ventures in numerous transactions, including the merger of its portfolio company OpenROV with Spoondrift (now Sofar)
Representative Joint Ventures:
- Ribbit Capital in its financial services joint venture with Walmart
- Woodward in its joint venture with General Electric for fuel systems for large commercial aircraft jet engines
* Includes experience at another firm prior to returning to Wilson Sonsini in 2021.
Select Speaking Engagements
- Panelist, “M&A Readiness,” Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center IPO Bootcamp, June 14, 2023
- Panelist, “Growth Through Acquisition: Buy Side Overview and Insights,” Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center M&A Bootcamp, February 22, 2023
- Moderator, “What to Know When Considering M&A in a Biden Administration,” Webinar, September 14, 2021
- Speaker, “So you want to sell your company . . . Tips from the M&A Trenches,” Uncork Capital CTO Summit, May 17, 2017
Insights
Select Speaking Engagements
- Panelist, “M&A Readiness,” Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center IPO Bootcamp, June 14, 2023
- Panelist, “Growth Through Acquisition: Buy Side Overview and Insights,” Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center M&A Bootcamp, February 22, 2023
- Moderator, “What to Know When Considering M&A in a Biden Administration,” Webinar, September 14, 2021
- Speaker, “So you want to sell your company . . . Tips from the M&A Trenches,” Uncork Capital CTO Summit, May 17, 2017
Focus Areas
Recent Insights
Client Highlights
Wilson Sonsini Advises Aledade in Acquisition of Medical Advantage
On May 1, 2024, Aledade, the nation’s largest and most successful network of physician-led value-based care, announced that it has acquired Michigan-based Medical Advantage, which since 2014 has operated as a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Doctors Company, the nation's largest physician-owned medical malpractice insurer. Wilson Sonsini advised Aledade on the transaction.
The partnership bolsters Aledade’s status as the nation’s preeminent primary care Accountable Care Organization (ACO) network and a recognized leader in value-based care. It also expands Michigan physician partnerships with Aledade from 35 to approximately 700. Aledade also will sustain Medical Advantage’s status as a physician organization able to participate in value-based care arrangements with both public and private payers, including Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.
The Wilson Sonsini team that advised Aledade on the transaction includes:
Corporate/M&A
Steve Bernard
Mike Russell
Andrew Lombardo
Ava Munson
Zachary Williams
Cindy West
The partnership bolsters Aledade’s status as the nation’s preeminent primary care Accountable Care Organization (ACO) network and a recognized leader in value-based care. It also expands Michigan physician partnerships with Aledade from 35 to approximately 700. Aledade also will sustain Medical Advantage’s status as a physician organization able to participate in value-based care arrangements with both public and private payers, including Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.
The Wilson Sonsini team that advised Aledade on the transaction includes:
Corporate/M&A
Steve Bernard
Mike Russell
Andrew Lombardo
Ava Munson
Zachary Williams
Cindy West
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Client Highlights
Wilson Sonsini Represents SpotOn in Sale of Business Unit to Shift4
On October 2, 2023, SpotOn, one of the leading software and payment companies in the United States, announced that it has reached a strategic agreement to sell its sports and entertainment business to Shift4, while retaining select assets to support the growth of its restaurant business. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati represented SpotOn in the transaction.
Following the deal, SpotOn will focus its teams and investment to supercharge growth in the restaurant space. SpotOn Restaurant has delivered high double-digit growth year over year and has been rated the No. 1 restaurant point-of-sale by real users. The company began serving restaurants in 2019 and has aggressively grown its market share each year. SpotOn Restaurant is now one of the most comprehensive, end-to-end restaurant technology platforms on the market, giving restaurant operators everything they need to drive profit—from an intuitive point-of-sale system with solutions for online ordering, reservations, and labor management to hardware designed to improve employee efficiency and service speed.
The Wilson Sonsini team representing SpotOn in the transaction includes:
Following the deal, SpotOn will focus its teams and investment to supercharge growth in the restaurant space. SpotOn Restaurant has delivered high double-digit growth year over year and has been rated the No. 1 restaurant point-of-sale by real users. The company began serving restaurants in 2019 and has aggressively grown its market share each year. SpotOn Restaurant is now one of the most comprehensive, end-to-end restaurant technology platforms on the market, giving restaurant operators everything they need to drive profit—from an intuitive point-of-sale system with solutions for online ordering, reservations, and labor management to hardware designed to improve employee efficiency and service speed.
The Wilson Sonsini team representing SpotOn in the transaction includes:
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Recent Events
Affiliated Programs
What to Know When Considering M&A in a Biden Administration
M&A is at an all-time high, while antitrust risk is becoming the most significant consideration for companies considering strategic transactions. This means that assessment of risk and mitigation strategies continue to be essential.
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