Ben Beerle

Ben’s practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, minority investments and other complex corporate transactions, primarily in the technology and life sciences industries. He represents strategic and financial buyers and sellers in public and private acquisitions and has significant cross-border experience.

Ben’s representative M&A transactions include advising:

Technology

• Cornerstone OnDemand in its:
  • Sale to Clearlake Capital for approximately $5.2 billion
  • Acquisition of Saba for approximately $1.4 billion
  • Acquisition of Clustree
  • Acquisition of Workpop
• Zoom’s announced and then terminated agreement to acquire Five9 in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $14.7 billion
• Uber in its:
  • Acquisition of Transplace for approximately $2.25 billion
  • Acquisition of Drizly for approximately $1.1 billion
  • Joint venture with Yandex
  • Acquisition and subsequent divestiture of JUMP
  • Reorganization of Careem, its Middle East subsidiary, into separate ride-hailing and super app business units in connection with proposed $400m investment by e& in the super app business
• Twilio in its:
  • Acquisition of Segment for approximately $3.2 billion
  • Acquisition of Boku Identity
• Fastly’s acquisition of Signal Sciences for approximately $775 million
• Tableau’s sale to Salesforce for approximately $15.7 billion
• Ellie Mae’s sale to Thoma Bravo for approximately $3.7 billion
• Dropbox’s acquisitions of HelloSign for $230 million, DocSend, Hypertools (dba Command E) and King Street Labs (dba FormSwift).
• Mandiant’s sale to FireEye for approximately $1.2 billion
• Netflix’s acquisitions of Boss Fight Entertainment and Spry Fox
• Patreon’s acquisition of Moment
• Measurabl’s acquisition of Hatch Data
• Accel Partners in connection with Qualtrics take-private transaction

Healthcare and life sciences

• RayzeBio’s agreement to sell to Bristol-Myers Squibb for approximately $4.1 billion
• Carmot Therapeutics' agreement to sell to Roche for up to $3.1 billion (including milestones)
• Apollo Endosurgery’s sale to Boston Scientific for approximately $615 million
• Tmunity sale to Kite
• Principia Biopharma’s sale to Sanofi for approximately $3.7 billion
• Forty Seven’s sale to Gilead for approximately $4.9 billion
• Immune Design’s sale to Merck for approximately $300 million
• Abaxis’ sale to Zoetis for approximately $2 billion
• Medivation’s sale to Pfizer for approximately $14 billion
• Horizon Pharma in its:
  • Acquisition of Raptor Pharmaceutical for approximately $800 million 
  • Acquisition of Hyperion Therapeutics for approximately $1.1 billion
  • Acquisition of River Vision for approximately $145 million
• Jazz Pharmaceuticals’ acquisition of Celator Pharmaceuticals for approximately $1.5 billion
• Cardioxyl Pharmaceuticals’ sale to Bristol Myers Squibb for up to $2 billion

Consumer and retail

• ChannelAdvisor’s sale to CommerceHub for $725 million
• Sweetgreen’s acquisition of Spyce
• Sazerac in its:
  • Acquisition of BuzzBallz
  • Acquisition of portfolio brands from Diageo for $550 million
  • Acquisition of Paul Masson Grande Amber Brandy brand from Constellation Brands for $225 million
• Peet’s Coffee & Tea’s acquisition of Mighty Leaf Tea
• Levi Strauss & Co.’s acquisition of Beyond Yoga

Manufacturing

• Tempo Automation in its:
  • Acquisition of Compass AC Holdings (dba Advanced Circuits)
  • Acquisition of acquire Whizz Systems

Financial advisory

• Morgan Stanley as financial adviser to:
  • Sumo Logic in its sale to Franciso Partners for $1.7 billion
  • UserTesting in its sale to Thoma Bravo for $1.3 billion
  • Broadcom in its acquisition of Vmware for $61 billion
  • Poly in its sale to HP for approximately $3.3 billion
  • Livongo in its sale to Teladoc for approximately $18.5 billion
  • Intuit in its acquisition of Mailchimp for $12 billion
  • Entegris in its acquisition of CMC Materials for approximately $6.5 billion
• Qatalyst Partners as financial adviser to:
• Splunk in its agreement to sell to Cisco for $26 billion
• Cvent in its sale to Blackstone for $4.6 billion
• iRobot in its agreement to sell to Amazon for $1.7 billion
• Vonage in its sale to Ericsson for approximately $6.2 billion
• Fitbit in its sale to Google for approximately $2.1 billion
• Apptio in its sale to Vista Equity Partners for approximately $2 billion

Prior to joining Cooley, Ben was an associate with Kirkland & Ellis in San Francisco.

Awards & Accolades:

• Chambers USA: Corporate/M&A – California: San Francisco, Silicon Valley & Surrounds: Up and Coming
• The Legal 500 US: M&A/Corporate and Commercial – Next Generation Partner (2021)
• San Diego Super Lawyers: Rising Star – M&A (2016)