Pierce Atwood's Catalyst Program

Pierce Atwood has over a century of experience and proven success in helping our client companies to grow into large, stable, and profitable enterprises. We apply that deep experience in counseling business clients on corporate, tax, and commercial transactions with our excellent intellectual property and venture capital financing expertise to help emergent growth companies compete in today's challenging marketplace.

In our Catalyst Program, our firm is reaching out to provide today's emergent growth companies with the skilled legal services they need to become the successful companies of tomorrow. In this competitive program, we provide the key legal services needed for success in an innovative and flexible fee arrangement designed to address the entrepreneur's realistic cash flow challenges.

We help start up companies to obtain and leverage intellectual property protections, to address corporate governance issues, and to seek angel and venture capital funding. Our Catalyst Team has the critical experience in assisting high technology and growth companies in the key areas:

• Business
• Corporate Governance
• Employee Benefits
• Emerging Businesses
• Family Business
• General Commercial
• Intellectual Property
• Mergers and Acquisitions
• Litigation (including Patent Litigation)
• Public Finance
• Securities
• State and Local Tax

Through Catalyst, we work with technology and other startup companies that base their businesses on proprietary technology and creative ideas they have developed or acquired.

We work closely with these companies to protect their intellectual property assets, create strategic business partnerships, build manufacturing and distribution networks, develop effective marketing strategies, and even build strong management teams, all with the goal of launching them successfully into the New England regional economy.

Catalyst will consider applications from companies working in all industries. Applicants will be given consideration in relation to the following criteria:

• Satisfactory completion of the Application
• Strength of candidate's passion and commitment to the venture
• Strength of management team's qualifications to make the venture succeed
• Business Plan's ability to convince the readers of a true market opportunity, viable upside potential
• The venture's likelihood for business success (financial profitability and/or social impact) and the timing of that success (weighting of 2)

 And other consideration given to:

• The venture's scale of success
• The venture's likelihood for sustainability

Gum Spirits Production

Gum Spirits Productions, based in Portland Maine, has been producing independent films since 2003.

Three Priests is its most ambitious undertaking to date. Gum Spirits' previous full length feature, Sundowning, was micro budget feature, that has had tremendous success in the independent film circuit. It collected the "Emerging Mavericks" Director's Award at the 2005 Cinequest Film Festival, the Special Jury Prize at the Independent Film Festival of Boston, was an official selection of the Newport Beach Film Festival,and won the 2004 Maine Screenwriting Award.

Based on the success of Sundowning, the Gum Spirits team has now moved on to a larger budget film with a cast of highly accomplished actors for its follow up, Three Priests. Three Priests has just been accepted to the March 2008 Cinequest Film Festival.

Pierce Atwood saw Gum Spirits through a private offering to raise the funding for Three Priests; set up the corporate structure, including with respect to investor interests, of Three Priests LLC; acted as production counsel for Three Priests, and is working with Gum Spirits to secure and negotiate distribution for the film.

Ocean Renewable Power Company, LLC

Pierce Atwood serves as general counsel to this developer of tidal energy technology and projects. We have assisted our client on the broad range of legal issues typically encountered by a high technology early stage company, ranging from corporate and intellectual property issues to transactional advice on private equity financing. Congratulations to Ocean Renewable Power Company, LLC on the first ever successful implementation of tidal energy at a federal facility and for being named the New Technology of the Year by TechMaine in June 2010.

For more information, please contact any of our catalyst attorneys.

Portland
Gloria Pinza
207·791·1149 or gpinza@pierceatwood.com

Boston
William (Will) L. Worden
617·488·8103 or wworden@pierceatwood.com  

Portsmouth
Scott Pueschel
603·373·2019  or spueschel@pierceatwood.com