Reaves_Avery

C. S. Avery Reaves

Reaves_Avery

C. S. Avery Reaves

Partner

  • Co-Chair, Emerging Company and Venture Capital Practice
Boston + 1 617 526 6657

Avery Reaves is a corporate partner with extensive experience advising life sciences and technology companies on corporate and securities matters. Avery represents emerging and growth-stage companies throughout the corporate lifecycle and supports companies and investors in financing transactions, including early- and later-stage venture capital and growth equity investments. Avery also routinely counsels companies and boards in connection with public offerings and mergers and acquisitions.

As co-chair of the firm’s Emerging Company and Venture Capital Practice, Avery leads initiatives that support entrepreneurs and investors. He regularly counsels founders on entity formation, equity and debt financings, and governance matters, and serves as outside general counsel to clients. In addition to co-editing the firm’s annual Venture Capital Report, he regularly speaks to incubators and entrepreneurial communities on legal issues facing startups, guest lectures at local universities, and judges business-plan competitions. Avery also serves as an Expert-in-Residence at the Harvard Innovation Labs and an Expert in Entrepreneurship with Duke University’s Innovation & Entrepreneurship program.

Avery is also a member of the firm’s Capital Markets Practice, where he advises public companies on a range of matters related to initial public offerings, follow-on transactions, strategic transactions, and compliance matters, including considerations for companies navigating the transition from private to public markets.
Avery has consistently been included in Boston Magazine’s Top Lawyers list and was named an “Up & Coming Lawyer” by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly in 2024.

Before joining WilmerHale, Avery worked as a management consultant with The Boston Consulting Group, focusing on finance, healthcare, retail, and transportation sectors; interned with mobile health startup Voxiva; served as a Venture Fellow with Richmond Global, an early-stage venture capital fund; and interned in the Public Corruption & Special Prosecutions Unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston.

Experience

  • Public Offerings

    • Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. in its $1.725 billion public offering.
    • Ocular Therapeutix, Inc. in multiple public offerings including its $75 million initial public offering, its $101 million follow-on offering, its $25 million bought deal, and its $37 million confidentially marketed public offering.
    • Casa Systems, Inc. in its $175 million public offering by selling shareholders.
    • PTC Therapeutics, Inc. in its $100 million public offering.
    • Nightstar Therapeutics plc in its $83 million public offering.
    • Voyager Therapeutics, Inc. in its $62 million public offering.
    • AVEO Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in multiple public offerings including its $17 million confidentially marketed public offering and its $25 million common stock and warrant offering.
    • At-the-market offering programs on behalf of multiple public company clients including Voyager Therapeutics, Inc.; Ocular Therapeutix, Inc.; AVEO Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Infinity Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; and Epizyme, Inc.

  • Mergers & Acquisitions

    • Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. in its $1.06 billion sale of its cell culture, gene modulation and magnetic beads businesses to GE Healthcare.
    • Cumberland Farms, Inc. in the approximately $800 million sale of its Gulf Oil and Assured Deal business to affiliates of ArcLight Capital Partners.
    • WEX Inc. in its $532 million acquisition of Evolution1, a leader in cloud-based technology and payment solutions in the healthcare industry.
    • A financial services company in its spinout of its private equity business.
    • A Flagship Pioneering portfolio company in its merger into Codiak Biosciences, Inc.
    • Sanbolic, Inc., an innovator and leader in workload-oriented storage virtualization technologies, in its acquisition by Citrix, Inc.
    • Tangoe, Inc. in its take-private, tender-offer sale to affiliates of Marlin Equity Partners.

  • Venture Capital and Other Financings

    • PTC Therapeutics, Inc. in its $288 million offering of convertible senior notes under Rule 144A.
    • Voyager Therapeutics, Inc. in its $50 million private placement of common stock.
    • Ocular Therapeutix, Inc. in its $37 million private placement of senior subordinated convertible notes.
    • A next-generation nuclear power company in its $25 million Series A financing.
    • A biotechnology company focusing on cellular medicines in its $18 million Series A financing.
    • A biotechnology company focusing on the microbiome in its $16 million Series A financing.
    • A global institutional investor in a $223 million preferred stock financing of Vets First Choice (f/k/a Direct Vet Marketing, Inc.).
    • A global institutional investor in a $125 million common stock financing of a private equity-backed healthcare company.
    • A global asset manager in a $23 million Series D financing of Nvest, Inc.
    • Flagship Pioneering, Spark Capital, General Catalyst, Samsara BioCapital and various other financial and strategic investors in numerous private placement financings.
    • Preferred stock financings on behalf of multiple private company clients including Celtaxsys, Inc.; 1366 Technologies Inc.; Soft Robotics Inc.; QD Vision, Inc.; and Embr Labs, Inc.
    • Convertible note and venture debt financings on behalf of multiple private company clients including Embr Labs, Inc.; Allena Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; and Benu Networks, Inc.

Recognition

  • Consistently named to Boston Magazine’s annual Top Lawyers list in the area of corporate law. 

Insights & News

View all of C. S. Avery's insights & news

Credentials

  • Education

    • JD, Harvard Law School, 2013

      Articles Editor and Deputy Managing Editor, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy

    • MBA, Finance and Health Care Management, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 2010

      with honors

    • AB, Political Science and Economics, Duke University, 2004

      magna cum laude

  • Admissions

    • Massachusetts

Credentials

Notice

Unless you are an existing client, before communicating with WilmerHale by e-mail (or otherwise), please read the Disclaimer referenced by this link. (The Disclaimer is also accessible from the opening of this website). As noted therein, until you have received from us a written statement that we represent you in a particular manner (an "engagement letter") you should not send to us any confidential information about any such matter. After we have undertaken representation of you concerning a matter, you will be our client, and we may thereafter exchange confidential information freely.

Thank you for your interest in WilmerHale.

I Accept Cancel