Stephen Barak Rozen is a partner at Amit, Pollak, Matalon & Co.’s Hi-Tech and Venture Capital Department and chairs its Food-Tech and Ag-Tech practice. Mr. Rozen also leads the firm’s relationships with law firms around the world as Head of International Relationships.
Mr. Rozen’s practice focuses on both buy and sell-side mergers and acquisitions, equity financing transactions, private equity and venture capital funds, and general corporate matters.
Mr. Rozen is named as a Thomson Reuters Stand-out Lawyer and rated by IFLR 1000 as one of Israel’s leading lawyers in the field of mergers and acquisitions in the areas of investment management, pharmaceuticals and life sciences, and technology and telecommunications. Mr. Rozen is also recommended by The Legal 500 in the fields of Hi-Tech and Start-Ups.
In addition, Mr. Rozen leads APM & Co.’s Israel Innovation Authority (IIA) practice and specializes in advising on all matters relating to its benefit tracks, rules and regulations. As part of this, Mr. Rozen represents many entities that operate under the auspices of the IIA, or that vie for franchises to operate under the IIA’s auspices.
Furthermore, Mr. Rozen also represents high tech and bio-tech companies in all of their transactions and day-to-day corporate and commercial affairs, including international commercial transactions, licensing arrangements, R&D agreements, joint ventures and employment affairs.
Mr. Rozen also frequently handles the formation of private equity and venture capital funds, including technological incubators and open innovation labs.
Mr. Rozen frequently lectures on matters relating to the Israel Innovation Authority, including for the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Open University.
From 2001 to 2006, Mr. Rozen formulated and drafted the military’s position on proposed legislation being considered by the Knesset and government.
Mr. Rozen is a Lieutenant Colonel in the reserves.
Significant transactions and positions Mr. Rozen was, and remains, involved in include:
- Representing The Nielsen Company and NielsenIQ in numerous mergers and acquisition, including eXelate, VisualDNA, vBrand, Retail Plus and ciValue.
- Representing Meridian Bioscience in its US$ 49 million acquisition of publicly traded Exalenz Bioscience.
- Representing Boston Scientific in its US$ 210 million acquisition of publicly traded EndoChoice Holdings.
- Serving as Chief Legal Counsel for The Time Innovations (formerly Lab-One). The Time was named the “best incubator” three years in a row- for 2010, 2011 and 2012- by the Israeli Minister of Economy.
- Serving as Chief Legal Counsel for numerous technological incubators and open innovation labs operating under the auspices of the Israel Innovation Authority, including Nielsen Innovate (by The Nielsen Company), MindUP (by IBM, Medtronic, Pitango and Rambam Medical Center), The Kitchen Hub (by the Strauss Group), FoodNxt (by IFF-Frutarom), ESIL (by Bazan Group, EDF Renewables and Johnson Matthey), Fresh Start (by Tempo, Tnuva, Finistere and OurCrowd), CanNegev (by Perrigo, BOL Pharma and OurCrowd), FinSec Lab (by Mastercard and Enel X) and InfraLab (by Enel and the Shikun & Binui group), as well as chief outside counsel for TerraLab Ventures, NGT3 and Renault-Nissan.
- Representing numerous international consortiums in their successful vying for a franchise to run an Israel Innovation Authority-supervised technological incubator and open innovation lab.
- Representing Gentex in its US$ 17 million (as reported in the press) acquisition of Guardian Optical.
- Representing the major shareholders of ChameleonX in its US$ 20 million (as reported in the press) acquisition by Akamai.
- Representing H&H Group, and its NewH2 corporate venture arm, in its equity investment in Meta Flow (Lumen).
- Representing QUALCOMM Ventures in its equity investments in MantisVision, Ravello Systems (later acquired by Oracle) and Tapingo.
- Representing SanDisk Corporation in its equity investment in Ravello Systems (later acquired by Oracle).
- Representing Javelin Networks in its acquisition by publicly traded Symantec.
- Representing Traffix in its US$ 135 million (as reported in the press) acquisition by publicly traded F5 Networks.
- Representing Mr. Avi Brenmiller, CEO of Israeli clean-tech Solel Solar Systems, in Ecofin’s US$ 105 million equity investment in Solel and later in multinational Siemens’ US$ 420 million acquisition of Solel.
- Representing the Israeli bio-tech company MediGuide in a multi-million dollar transaction with multinational Medtronic, involving collaborative development, licensing and an equity investment and later in its US$ 300 million acquisition by the multinational St. Jude Medical.
- Representing StageOne Ventures, an investor in Guardium, in International Business Machines’ (IBM) US$ 225.5 million (as reported in the press) acquisition of Guardium.
- Representing Magma Venture Partners and StageOne Ventures, investors in Trivnet, in Gemalto’s US$ 40 million (as reported in the press) acquisition of Trivnet.
- Representing Exanet’s temporary liquidator in the US$ 12 million sale of its assets to Dell.
- Representing Fortissimo Capital in the raising of its private equity Fortissimo Capital Fund II fund.
- Representing Vintage Venture Partners in the raising of its venture capital Vintage Ventures III and IV funds.
- Representing Vitalife Life Sciences Venture Capital in the raising of its venture capital SCP VitaLife II fund.
Joined the firm in 2006.
