Morgan Hunault-Berret joined Villechenon in 1999 as an associate before becoming a partner in 2004.
Eager to share her knowledge and experiences with aspiring entrepreneurs, Morgan regularly lectures graduate students in the Master in Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program at ESCP-Europe. Morgan is a member of the CRA and Entrepreneurship Network (Réseau Entreprendre). In addition, Morgan supports the non-profit endowment Explore managed by the sailor and explorer Rolland Jourdain. In this context, she occupies a Board member position for Explore.
Morgan’s areas of practice include Private Equity, Mergers & Acquisitions and capital markets.
With respect to Venture capital, Morgan advises start-up companies with strong growth potential as well as their management and investors in a variety of sectors (life sciences technologies, AI, new tech companies, telecommunication, Internet, and e-commerce).
She has also acted as principal Lawyer in a significant number of companies at all stages of development either via venture or growth capital operations or in the context of Mergers and Acquisitions.
With respect to capital markets, she has counsel for the issuer or the investment bank at the initial public offering (IPO) or on other public stock transactions, and also advised on regulatory issues of listed companies.
She built trust and long-term relationship with her clients, as she advised many of them for more than 15 years.
Morgan assists her clients in French and English.
The Firm
Villechenon is a niche French law firm with a strong entrepreneurial spirit.
Its practices include venture capital, growth capital, leveraged buyouts, mergers & acquisitions (M&A), joint-ventures and initial public offerings as well as employment and tax law. The quality of its advice, its highly specialized teams and its deep market knowledge has allowed Villechenon to advise on more than 200 transactions over the last three years.
Villechenon has a long-standing practice in venture and growth capital.
When created in 1979, Villechenon focused on advising entrepreneurs and managers in developing and growing their businesses. Over the years and with the development of venture and growth capital market, Villechenon has expended its ranges of activities and is now also advising numerous investors (investment funds, corporate venture funds, family offices etc) on a regular basis in venture and growth capital transactions.
With more than 30 years of experience in venture and growth capital transactions, Villechenon, one of the first French law firms to acquire this expertise, is recognized as a key player in the private equity market in France (and is regularly ranked by various specialist publications as a leading firm in this area).
Due to the firm’s longstanding representation of many start-ups and private equity and venture capital institutions, and the recognized high-quality of services provided by the firm and its lawyers, Villechenon is now an integral part of the French start-up ecosystem. Throughout the years, Villechenon has been able to secure robust, trustworthy, and long-term relationships with its clients. Several funds and companies have relied on the firm’s assistance for more than fifty years.
Villechenon is known for its ability to support start-ups through all steps of their development, starting with seed fundings, followed by series A, series B, series C fund raisings until an exit via an IPO or sale.
The Venture and Growth capital team regularly works in collaboration with its tax team on French tax issues mainly regarding founders’ and employees’ incentives.
Villechenon is eager to embrace the possibilities offered by new technologies to be more efficient and provide the best service for clients. For instance, the firm had pioneered in using electronic signature well before Covid-19, reducing the use of paper and improving signing/closing efficiency.
