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Samuel Asher Effron

Member / Co-chair, Venture Capital & Emerging Companies Practice

[email protected]

+1.212.692.6810

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Sam’s practice focuses on venture capital and other private securities transactions, counseling start-ups and emerging growth companies, funds and crowdfunding platforms. Sam is heavily involved in the start-up community in New York and regularly advises and mentors young companies and entrepreneurs regarding the legal and business issues that they face, and speaks at many of the local accelerators, incubators and co-working spaces.

Sam is a co-editor of MintzEdge, an online resource for entrepreneurs that includes useful tools and information for starting and growing a company, and is the co-editor of MintzTech Connect, Mintz’s periodic newsletter on "all things technology" in the legal and business world.

Sam provides counsel to private companies and venture capital funds operating and investing in a diverse range of industries, including biotech, fintech and financial services, media, artificial intelligence, blockchain, cybersecurity, CPG, insuretech and SaaS, among many others. Sam’s pro bono experience includes assisting asylum seekers apply for permanent asylum in the United States, representing not-for-profit clients to obtain federal tax-exempt status and providing legal services to victims of domestic abuse.

Prior to joining Mintz, Sam worked in the film and television industry on productions shot in and around New York City. He later served as a project manager at an online marketing and strategy agency, where he led a team of designers, writers, and programmers to create websites for clients including musician Sting. Subsequent to his agency work, Sam was the third employee of a start-up specializing in liquidation of technology assets for downsizing dot-com companies.

During law school, Sam was a staff member of the Cardozo Law Review and worked as an intern at the legal departments of This Is That Films and DC Comics.

viewpoints

Simplexity Services is a San Diego, CA-based company offering back-office services for start-up entrepreneurs and for those who have closed seed or Series A financings. Simplexity helps de-risk and accelerate startups by applying systems science and solutions as building blocks for essential founder infrastructure, resulting in the business insights and deliverables which allow founders and their investors to sleep better at night.

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Words are very powerful and the language we use often frames a discussion. For example, the term “shareholder activist” sounds like a consumer friendly person who has everyone’s best interests at heart, when in fact the term “shareholder activist” is a phrase invented to cast corporate raiders in a better light. Such semantic gamesmanship often masks the reality of a particular situation.

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Since its beginnings in early 2015, quip, the Brooklyn-based dental start-up co-founded by former industrial product designers Simon Enever and Bill May, has swiftly reinvented the archaic dental healthcare industry. From its superbly designed electric toothbrushes to its subscription toothbrush-head and toothpaste replacement service, and its “dental connect” digital platform for customers and dental professionals, quip has made it easier, more enjoyable, and more affordable for customers to keep their smiles bright and healthy. For these achievements, quip has received unprecedented dental industry and press coverage, including recognition as one of TIME Magazine’s 25 Best Inventions of 2016, a place on the O, The Oprah Magazine “O-List,” and a 2016 GQ Grooming Award. With such accolades and its robust social media following, quip is revolutionizing the way people around the world approach oral healthcare.

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U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission member Michael Piwowar on Tuesday urged investors to be wary of the pitfalls of so-called SAFE investments — a sophisticated financing instrument for startup companies — that are increasingly being marketed to the broader retail investing public.

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The current edition of MintzTech Connect includes an article relating to investing in hot secondary securities and an article on some of the pitfalls in our “gig economy” under New York law when hiring independent contractors. We also highlight a very cool young company called Kinnos, which is raising the standard of infectious disease decontamination to protect healthcare workers, patients, and the general public.

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Kinnos Inc. is a New York-based company that is raising the standard of infectious disease decontamination to protect healthcare workers, patients, and the general public. Their first product, Highlight®, is an additive for disinfectants that eliminates human error and allows even untrained end-users, such as healthcare workers, housekeeping staff, and biosafety personnel, to immediately use disinfectants effectively.

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This issue includes two articles that challenge conventional thinking. The first, called “Software is Still Patent Eligible,” makes the case that software patents can still be obtained. IP generally accretes in value over time and is critically important to the value proposition of many enterprises. While some commentators believe that software patents are no longer worth trying to obtain, we disagree. The second article is about a novel way to construct a more balanced approach to the share ownership of founders and investors. People often forget that the NVCA (National Venture Capital Association) forms are created by counsel to the venture capital industry and as such are generally biased in favor of the investor. Our article proposes a novel solution to mitigate this bias and the solution is both simple and equitable.

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Recognizing that physical therapy will always be in demand, Dr. Stephen Fealy MD, a leading orthopedic surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), and Greg Peters, a leading health and fitness expert, joined forces to make the overall physical therapy industry and experience more effective and efficient, thus BetterPT was conceived.

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Founded in 2012 and headquartered in New York City, T-REX’s secure, enterprise SaaS-based analytics, risk, and portfolio management platform standardizes and provides transparency to the complex structured products evaluation process, increasing liquidity and creating significant investment opportunities for the hundreds of billions of dollars of capital across various esoteric, non-commoditized asset classes.

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Our client, Benji Cohen, was running an Energy Markets Division at Macquarie when he had a lightbulb moment. Everywhere he looked valuation models were being put together in the most laborious way imaginable, with Excel tables containing hundreds of columns and thousands of rows. Benji saw a real point of pain in the marketplace and acted on it. Thus, in 2012, Benji created T-REX as a subscription-based, SaaS, FinTech platform that could compress the time for the valuation process to make the process 50 times faster and more accurate as well. And, the focus would be in a growing niche — the renewable energy sector. Benji was able to see the size of the opportunity, the point of pain in the marketplace, and the solution. With much hard work and great execution, T-REX is now a leader in this part of the FinTech space. In this edition of TechConnect, we highlight T-REX in our Innovator Profile.
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News & Press

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Law360 covered Mintz's partnership with legal tech provider Clara. The move allows Clara to enter the U.S. market.

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Through its creative partnership with legal tech provider Clara, Mintz provides founders with a cost-efficient way to start a US business. Utilizing Clara’s platform, Mintz created templates that enable users to form Delaware companies and prepare all necessary documents while additionally helping founders to meet all legal requirements.

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My Startup World covered Mintz's collaboration with legal tech provider Clara and quoted Members Dan DeWolf and Sam Effron.

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Mintz advised Cardurion Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biotechnology company developing novel therapeutics to treat heart failure and other cardiovascular diseases, in a private investment of up to $300 million from Bain Capital Life Sciences and Bain Capital Private Equity that will enable the Boston-based company to expand its drug discovery programs.
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In an article published by STAT, Mintz Member Samuel Effron was quoted on use among biotechnology and other companies of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Rule 506(c), which was designed to allow entrepreneurs to solicit funding more broadly.
Fourteen Mintz attorneys have been named New York Super Lawyers for 2017 and thirteen have been named New York Rising Stars. New York Super Lawyers recognizes the top lawyers with the highest degree of peer recognition and professional achievements.  
Mintz has elevated five attorneys to Members of the firm. “These attorneys consistently demonstrate excellence in the delivery of legal services to the firm’s clients,” said Bob Bodian, Managing Member.
Sam Effron, an emerging companies attorney, authored a post on VC Experts Blog tracking the filings for crowdfunding on Form C made with the SEC since May 2016 when Regulation Crowdfunding (Reg CF) went into effect.
Sixteen Mintz attorneys have been named New York Super Lawyers for 2016 and twelve have been named New York Rising Stars. The list will be published in a special advertising supplement in The New York Times Magazine and in a stand-alone magazine, New York Super Lawyers - Metro Edition.
Daniel DeWolf, Co-chair of Mintz’s Venture Capital & Emerging Companies and Technology Practices, and Associates Sam Effron and Rachel Gholston, authored this VC Experts Blog piece providing a clear overview of the best practices businesses can implement when using electronic signatures.
Sam Effron, a New York-based emerging companies attorney, is quoted in this New York Times article discussing new crowdfunding rules that will allow essentially anyone, not just professional investors, to have a stake in entrepreneurs of their choosing.
Thirteen attorneys from Mintz have been named New York Super Lawyers for 2014 and eleven have been named New York Rising Stars. The list will be published in a special advertising supplement in The New York Times Magazine and in a stand-alone magazine, New York Super Lawyers - Metro Edition.
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Events & Speaking

Speaker
Jul
30
2019

TechGC Roundtable

San Francisco, CA

Speaker
Apr
10
2019

TechGC Roundtable

New York, NY

Speaker
Apr
3
2019

The First Most Important Decision for the Entrepreneur: How to Choose the Right Corporate Entity for Your Startup

BioLabs@NYULangone

BioLabs@NYULangone, 180 Varick St., 6th Floor, New York, NY

Speaker
Mar
27
2019

Lunch and Learn at JLABS @ NYC

JLABS @ NYC, 101 6th Ave, New York, NY

Speaker
Speaker
Mar
15
2018

Legal Clinic

NYC MediaLabs

Moderator
Aug
2
2017

New York Business Clinic: Finance, Funding & Legal

Cleantech Open Northeast

New York, NY

Speaker
Aug
2
2017

New York Business Clinic: Finance, Funding & Legal

Cleantech Open Northeast

New York, NY

Speaker
Mar
17
2017

Corporate Formation Workshop

NYC Media Lab

New York, NY

Panelist
Sep
13
2016
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Recognition & Awards

  • New York Super Lawyers: Rising Star – Securities & Corporate Finance (2011 – 2017)

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Involvement

  • Guest Lecturer, High-Growth Corporate Transactions, Cornell Law School at Cornell Tech
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Samuel Asher Effron

Member / Co-chair, Venture Capital & Emerging Companies Practice

New York