Schoenherr has partnered with weXelerate, the largest start-up and innovation hub in Central Europe, as an active supporter and channel partner. On 26 September, the weXelerate on-boarding week begins for 55 promising international start-ups that will start developing their ideas in the innovation centre of the Nouvel Tower in Vienna.
The weXelerate entrepreneurs will receive legal advice from Schoenherr experts during regular office hours held on site. “The sooner start-ups legally secure the application of their technology and products, the more attractive their business models will be to investors; this is exactly what our legal advice is geared towards,” explains Thomas Kulnigg, corporate m&a partner at Schoenherr and a leading advisor to start-ups. As partner to the weXelerate block chain competence centre, Schoenherr is actively involved in the development of this field, in particular in the Initial Coin Offering area.
Gudrun Stangl, partner and COO of Schoenherr, describes why the law firm is committed to the start-up sphere: “At Schoenherr we value innovation not only in our industry, but in other business areas as well. Given that we support some of the largest and more renowned companies, we know what makes start-ups appealing to investors and corporates, and what matters to both sides in their cooperation.”
Open approach to innovation
In addition to its cooperation with weXelerate, Schoenherr has established other partnerships with innovation-drivers in the region. For instance, the law firm is a partner to the first legal tech conference to be held in Austria in November this year, where Schoenherr’s COO Gudrun Stangl will illustrate the ways in which the law firm is making real use of technology in order to automate processes and make them run more efficiently. For this purpose, Schoenherr is also collaborating with external tech-savvy innovators from across the region.
Schoenherr has been cooperating with ‘Austrian Start Ups’ since 2016, an organisation that seeks to foster the Austrian start-up ecosystem. Through regular gatherings such as the ‘Austrian Start Up Stammtisch’, the initiative is bringing together the most important players of the start-up scene.
Schoenherr has a wealth of experience as legal advisor to both investors and start-ups. Recently, corporate m&a partner Thomas Kulnigg and his team led the capital increases of the start-ups Mikme (audio technology), Diagnosia (health tech), Playbrush (consumer products), and Ivary (former ‘Juno Fertility’; health tech).
