Alastair chairs our International Committee, responsible for directing Shoosmiths international strategy and supporting clients' cross-border needs. Alastair has particular experience advising on cross-border M&A and investment transactions, particularly involving the USA, and he also leads our North American desk, which has deep rooted expertise advising clients wanting to do business in North America and supporting those from North America on their requirements globally.

Alastair founded our market leading Emerging Company and Venture Capital practice, which he developed into one of the largest and most active ECVC teams in Europe. He is recognized for his venture capital expertise, advising both institutions and companies/founders on start-up through funding rounds, M&A, and ultimately exit.

Key clients include: institutional investors such as Octopus Ventures, Triple Point, Gresham House, Nauta, Edge and Oxford Capital; and corporates such as Aramark, Create Music Group, and Global Critical Logistics. Alastair also advises start-up and scaling companies, typically technology enabled.  He is passionate about helping clients with both day-to-day and strategic issues.

Alastair's experience includes advising:

• Octopus Ventures on multiple investments, including investments into Secret Escapes and Depop. Alastair also advised Octopus on exits of Swiftkey to Microsoft, Evi to Amazon, Tails.com to Nestle, and Magic Pony to X;
• Ai language processing company Speechmatics on its $62m Series B led by Susquehanna Growth Equity;
• Ai as a service company Faculty on its $42.5m Series B led by Apax Digital Fund;
• German investor Digital Transformation Capital Partners (DTCP) on leading a $80m Series B investment round into Ai robotics company Dexory;
• Secondary specialist Alicorn Venture Partners on its take private (with Susquehanna Growth Equity) of Glassbox for $150m;
• Pentech and other VCs on the sale of Vauban (an end to end digital platform for alternative assets) to Carta;
• Harbr on its investment rounds including its $38.5m round led by Dawn Capital and Tiger Global;
• Educational earning platform Gizmo on its Series B led by US investor Shine;
• US VC FINTOP on numerous UK investments;
• Triple Point on multiple disposals of solar and other energy generation assets;
• New York headquartered Global Critical Logistics on acquisitions of multiple companies outside the USA, including Dynamic and CARS;
• Los Angeles headquartered Create Music Group on numerous acquisitions of UK music and media businesses;
• New York growth capital investor Invus on its investment into low alcohol brand Dionilife and subsequent acquisition of brewer Mash Gang;
• US investment bank Cowen on its leading a $61m late stage investment into biotech firm F2G;
• Amber Infrastructure, Equitix, and DIF Capital on investments into fibre broadband providers;
• Mercedes-Benz on the disposal of numerous UK assets to Hong Kong based LSH Auto.