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Daniel I. DeWolf

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

[email protected]

+1.212.692.6223

+1.415.432.6003

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Daniel is a leading authority on growth companies and venture capital law — and has worked on pioneering online capital-raising methods. He is immersed in the national and international ecosystem of emerging companies and investors focused on startups. He has also been a member of NYU Law School’s faculty since 2003, where he teaches venture capital law. Earlier, he co-founded and served as managing director of an early-stage venture capital firm based in New York City.

Daniel is Chair of Mintz's Technology Practice Group and Co-chair of the firm’s Venture Capital & Emerging Companies Practice Group. Daniel also serves as Chair of Mintz’s Corporate & Securities Practice in New York, further reflecting his leadership across the firm’s transactional practices. In addition to his active legal practice, he is an adjunct professor of law at the NYU Law School. Daniel is Editor of MintzEdge, an online resource for entrepreneurs that includes useful tools and information for starting and growing a company.

Before joining Mintz, Daniel was head of venture capital funds and a managing director of SoundView Technology Group, Inc. (formerly Wit Capital), a technology-focused investment bank. Prior to joining SoundView, he was head of the corporate and new media and e-law practice groups at one of the leading New York firms representing early stage and technology companies.

Daniel has more than 35 years of corporate transactional experience, both as a lawyer and as a businessman, and has been an advisor to many emerging and developmental stage companies. He is a board member of several technology companies and was a co-founder and managing director of Dawntreader Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm.

Additionally, Daniel is an author of a leading treatise on venture capital called Venture Capital: Forms and Analysis (Law Journal Press, 2007).

Daniel is a leading authority on growth companies and venture capital law — and has worked on pioneering online capital-raising methods. He is immersed in the national and international ecosystem of emerging companies and investors focused on startups. He has also been a member of NYU Law School’s faculty since 2003, where he teaches venture capital law. Earlier, he co-founded and served as managing director of an early-stage venture capital firm based in New York City.

Experience

viewpoints

Seniority Matters

June 15, 2017 | Article | By Daniel DeWolf

There is little doubt that activity in the trading of secondary shares of private companies remains robust. Private companies are staying private longer and there seems to be an unlimited demand to buy into the newest “Unicorn” anointed each week. As the market for secondary shares stays strong, valuations seem not to matter much to most buyers.
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MintzTech Innovator Profile: Kinnos, Inc.

June 15, 2017 | Article | By Daniel DeWolf, Samuel Asher Effron

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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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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MintzTech Connect Industry News - March 2017

March 15, 2017 | Article | By Daniel DeWolf, Samuel Asher Effron

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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MintzTech Innovator Profile: BetterPT

March 15, 2017 | Article | By Daniel DeWolf, Samuel Asher Effron

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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MintzTech Connect Industry News - December 2016

December 15, 2016 | Article | By Daniel DeWolf, Samuel Asher Effron

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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MintzTech Innovator Profile: T-REX

December 15, 2016 | Article | By Daniel DeWolf, Samuel Asher Effron

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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Revised Rule 504: Another Tool in the Toolkit to Raise Capital

December 1, 2016 | Alert | By Daniel DeWolf, Brian Novell

If there is one common theme that entrepreneurs tend to have, it is fire – meaning, many entrepreneurs are passionate about an exciting idea that they seek to turn into a business. However, entrepreneurs often quickly realize that, in order to make their fire glow high and bright for the world to see, they need fuel – meaning, capital.
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MintzTech Connect Industry News - September 2016

September 15, 2016 | Article | By Daniel DeWolf, Samuel Asher Effron

The world of raising capital for emerging companies has experienced a revolution. Prior to the enactment of the JOBS Act in 2012, raising capital for private companies was limited to offline communications and was dominated by professional venture capitalists; now the capital raising process has been democratized. Capital can be raised online directly by companies or through intermediaries. It can be accomplished by crowd sourcing to “accredited investors” or, in limited amounts, by crowdfunding to everyone. Additionally, companies can raise capital in an “IPO lite” manner by using the new Reg A+.

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Changing World of Raising Capital

September 15, 2016 | Article | By Daniel DeWolf, Megan Gates

The world of raising capital changed over the last several years. Offerings of securities generally used to fall into two main buckets: (i) private placements under the old Rule 506, or (ii) a public offering.
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News & Press

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Events & Speaking

Moderator
Moderator
Mar
19
2020

Investing in Energy Transformation [Event to be rescheduled]

Briefing on Power, Technology and Security Strategies

Mintz, 666 Third Ave, New York, NY

Seminar Reference Image
Speaker
Jul
30
2019

TechGC Roundtable

San Francisco, CA

Moderator
Jun
19
2019

Private Tech Investing Success Stories for Family Offices

Mintz, Chrysler Center, 666 Third Avenue, New York

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
Speaker
Speaker
Mar
15
2018

Legal Clinic

NYC MediaLabs

Co-chair
Oct
27
2017
Speaker
Mar
17
2017

Corporate Formation Workshop

NYC Media Lab

New York, NY

Moderator
Nov
3
2016

The Changing World of Raising Capital

MintzEdge and Columbia Technology Ventures

New York, NY

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Daniel is a leading authority on growth companies and venture capital law — and has worked on pioneering online capital-raising methods. He is immersed in the national and international ecosystem of emerging companies and investors focused on startups. He has also been a member of NYU Law School’s faculty since 2003, where he teaches venture capital law. Earlier, he co-founded and served as managing director of an early-stage venture capital firm based in New York City.

Recognition & Awards

  • Legal 500 United States: Recommended for Venture Capital and Emerging Companies (2015 – 2017; 2021 – 2022, 2024)

  • Legal 500 United States: Ranked as Leading Partner for Venture Capital and Emerging Companies (2025) 

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Daniel is a leading authority on growth companies and venture capital law — and has worked on pioneering online capital-raising methods. He is immersed in the national and international ecosystem of emerging companies and investors focused on startups. He has also been a member of NYU Law School’s faculty since 2003, where he teaches venture capital law. Earlier, he co-founded and served as managing director of an early-stage venture capital firm based in New York City.

Involvement

  • Adjunct Professor at NYU School of Law
  • Guest Lecturer, High-Growth Corporate Transactions, Cornell Law School at Cornell Tech
  • Judge, Harvard Business School Business Plan Contest
  • Member, Advisory Council to the Public Policy Committee of the Angel Capital Association
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Daniel I. DeWolf

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

San Francisco New York