Alessandra Love Simons

Aly Love Simons is a partner in the firm’s Business Law department and a member of its M&A/Corporate Governance and Technology practices. She serves as co-chair of the firm’s Technology M&A practice. Aly joined Goodwin in 2014.

Aly coaches boards and executives through successful M&A exits and helps companies grow their businesses and realize value through acquisition, both domestically and cross-border. She works with and advises companies in all stages of growth. She also has experience advising venture funds and growth equity funds in a variety of investment transactions including structuring and executing secondary sales and other private liquidity programs. While focusing on the tech sector with expertise in gaming, cybersecurity, SAAS, and ad/marketing tech, she has experience in a wide range of industries, including media, healthcare, and consumer products.

Cited by Chambers USA for her M&A expertise, Aly is, according to the guide, “especially active in the technology sector.” Clients describe her as “fantastic to work with” and “practical, straightforward and gets up to speed with matters quickly.” They also praise her leadership skills and her “great ability to create consensus on strategies.”

Aly has advised on the following transactions:

Sell-Side:

• Qualtrics in connection with with its $12.5 billion acquisition by Silver Lake and CCP Investments
• Pixomondo in connection with its acquisition by Sony
• The Yes in connection with its acquisition by Pinterest
• Basepaws in connection with its acquisition by Zoetis
• Digit in connection with its $212 million acquisition by Oportun
• Integrate in connection with its acquisition by Audax
• Innovium in its acquisition by Marvell for $1.1 billion
• Datavant in its combination with CIOX at a transaction value of $7 billion
• VenueNext in its $72 million acquisition by Shift4
• Collective Medical Technologies in its acquisition by PointClickCare (cross-border)
• Segment.io in its $3.2 billion acquisition by Twilio
• Portworx in its $370 million acquisition by Pure Storage
• BlueJeans Network in connection with its acquisition by Verizon
• Fluidmesh in connection with its acquisition by Cisco (cross-border)
• Sanzaru Games in connection with its acquisition by Facebook
• Acquia in connection with its acquisition by Vista Equity Partners
• Opex Analytics in connection with its acquisition by Llamasoft
• Kixeye in connection with its acquisition by Stillfront Group for up to $120 million (cross-border)
• Webroot in connection with its acquisition by Carbonite for $618.5 million
• Qualtrics in connection with its acquisition by SAP for $8 billion (cross-border)
• Smyte in connection with its acquisition by Twitter
• WePay in connection with its acquisition by Chase
• Sencha in connection with its acquisition by Idera
• Trooly in connection with its acquisition by AirBnb
• True&Co. in connection with its acquisition by PVH Corp
• Startup Compass in connection with its acquisition by Sage Software (cross-border)
• Intelligize, Inc. in connection with its acquisition by LexisNexis
• LiveFyre in connection with its acquisition by Adobe
• Replay Technologies in connection with its acquisition by Intel (cross-border)
• MarketLive in connection with its acquisition by Vista Equity Partners
• Risesmart in connection with its acquisition by Randstad Holding for $100 million
• Modest in connection with its acquisition by PayPal
• TellApart in connection with its acquisition by Twitter for approximately $533 million
• Pentaho Corporation in connection with its acquisition by Hitachi Data Systems Corporation (cross-border)
• Location Labs in connection with its acquisition by AVG Technologies for cash and contingent consideration of up to $220 million (cross-border)
• Citrus Lane in connection with its acquisition by Care.com for cash, equity and contingent consideration of up to $48.6 million

Buy-Side:

• Bobbie in connection with its acquisition of Nature’s One
• Miro in connection with its acquisition of Around
• Harness in connection with its acquisition of Drone.io
• Exabeam in connection with its acquisition of Skyformation (cross-border)
• Okta in connection with its acquisition of Azuqua for $52.5 million and its acquisition of ScaleFT
• Wiser (fka Quad Analytix) in connection with its acquisition of Wiser (cross-border), Mobee, WorkIt (cross-border), and Snooper (cross-border)
• Singapore Telecommunications Limited / Amobee with their acquisitions of certain assets of Videology for $117 million (cross-border) and Turn for $310 million (cross-border)
• Eventbrite in connection with its acquisitions of Picatic (cross-border) and Ticketea (cross-border)
• Qualtrics in connection with its acquisition of Delighted
• GoFundMe in connection with its acquisitions of Crowdrise and YouCaring
• Franklin Templeton Investments with its acquisition of Random Forest Capital
• GoDaddy in connection with multiple acquisitions
• Tenere in connection with its acquisition of Mountain Molding
• Hortonworks in connection with its acquisitions of XA Secure and SequenceIQ

Investor Representation:

• DCM in the sale of multiple portfolio companies
• Uncork in the sale of multiple portfolio companies
• Reed Elsevier Ventures in the sale of multiple portfolio companies
• An investor consortium including Transformation Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and certain other investors, in connection with the sale of their portfolio company, PatientPing, to Appriss Health
• An investor consortium comprised of Sapphire Ventures, Rho Ventures, Tola Capital and Azure Capital, in connection with the sale of their portfolio company, Convercent to OneTrust
• Bain Capital in connection with the sale of its portfolio company, Frame, to Nutanix
• An investor consortium led by Bain Capital, in connection with the sale of their portfolio company, evident.io, to Palo Alto Networks for $300 million
• August Capital in connection with the sale of its portfolio company, Rocketmiles, to Priceline
• An investor consortium comprised of August Capital, Canaan Partner and Foundation Capital, who together own a substantial majority of the equity in Ebates, in connection with the sale of Ebates to Rakuten for $1 billion (cross-border)
• Khosla Ventures in connection with the sale of its portfolio companies, Virdia, to Stora Enso for cash and contingent consideration of up to $62 million (cross-border), and Timeful, to Google

Other Representation:

• Qualtrics in connection with its $150 million financing
• Multiple acquisitions, divestitures and investments for a large multi-national media conglomerate
• Other recent clients include General Galactic, Upwave, Mass Appeal, Corvana, Kairos Aerospace, SafeBreach, Founders Circle Capital, DCM Ventures, White Owl Capital Partners, and Foresite

Aly serves as the co-chair of the San Francisco chapter of Goodwin’s women’s initiative, Women@Goodwin. Prior to joining Goodwin, Aly was an associate in the New York and San Francisco offices of Hogan Lovells US LLP.

She sits on the advisory board for HimforHer, a not-for-profit that accelerates diversity on for-profit boards by bridging the gap between board opportunities and talented women ready for board service, and currently sits as a board member on Law360’s M&A Editorial Advisory Board.

Aly has also served as a member of the Board of Trustees of Westover School (Middlebury, CT).

Aly has been most recently recognized by Chambers USA for her work in Corporate/M&A in California and by the Legal 500 as a Next Generation Partner in M&A: middle market, and as a Recommended Lawyer for Technology Transactions. She has also been recognized by The Deal’s Top Women in Dealmaking 2023 and in Legal 500 2022 as a M&A: Middle Market Next Generation Partner. She is also listed on Mergers & Acquisitions’ list of Most Influential Women in Mid-Market M&A in 2022. She has been recognized by Legal 500 2021 as a Next Generation Partner and by Mergers & Acquisitions’ list of Most Influential Women in Mid-Market M&A in 2022. She has been selected for inclusion in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business. Aly has worked on many high profile deals in the technology M&A sector. She has recently been recognized in Law360’s 2020 Rising Stars list, the Daily Journal’s 2019 40 Under 40 list and in the Thought Leadership category of Corporate Counsel’s 2019 Women, Influence & Power in Law awards. She was also selected as a winner of The M&A Advisor’s 9th Annual Emerging Leaders Award. In addition, her work on the TellApart sale to Twitter led to Goodwin’s recognition by Acquisition International as the “Best Technology-Focused Transactions Team".

Aly’s recent presentations include:

• Speaker, “Universal Issues and Preliminary Documents,” PLI Drafting and Negotiating Corporate Agreements, February 2023
• Speaker, “State of the M&A Market,” Uncork Capital’s 11th Annual Portfolio Summit 2022, October 2022
• Speaker, “Playing on a Global Stage: Understanding Cyber Trends and Making the Big Deals,” Cyber Week Tel Aviv, June 2022
• Speaker, “Universal Issues and Preliminary Documents,” PLI Drafting and Negotiating Corporate Agreements 2022, Webinar, February 2022
• Speaker, “Parenthood, Partners, and Parity in the Legal Profession,” Berkeley Law Webinar Presentation, December 2021
• Speaker, “Paths to Liquidity,” Uncork Capital’s 10th Annual Portfolio Summit 2021, November 2021
• Speaker, “Universal Issues and Preliminary Documents,” PLI Drafting and Negotiating Corporate Agreements 2021, February 2021
• Speaker, “Exploring the M&A Landscape,” CREtech Reimagining Real Estate Sustainability Summit 2020, September 2020
• Speaker, “M&A and Open Source During Uncertain Times,” FOSSA Webinar, September 2020
• Speaker, “M&A in Tech Across Borders: Legal Trends, Risks, and Common Pitfalls,” Portolano Cavallo and Goodwin Co-hosted Webinar, July 2020
• Speaker, “Universal Issues and Preliminary Documents,” PLI Drafting and Negotiating Corporate Agreements 2020, February 2020
• Speaker, “A Global Comparative Analysis of Technology Company M&A Transactions,” ITechLaw 2019 European Conference, October 2019
• Speaker, “M&A Panel,” Uncork Capital Portfolio Summit, October 2019
• Speaker, “How to Win Founders and Influence Boards,” Atlas Global Software M&A Conference, 2019
• Panelist, “Corporate Development Panel: Insights into M&A 2019,” Atlas Global Software M&A Conference, 2019
• Panelist, “M&A Panel,” Uncork Capital Portfolio Summit, October 2018
• Speaker, “What They Never Tell Sellers about Due Diligence,” Black Duck by Synopsys FLIGHT East 2018, September 2018
• Speaker, “What They Never Tell Sellers about Due Diligence,” Black Duck by Synopsys FLIGHT West 2018, June 2018
• Panelist, “M&A Panel,” Uncork Capital Portfolio Summit, November 2017
• Speaker, “Avoiding and Managing M&A Disputes,” Daily Journal’s 2017 Western M+A/Private Equity Forum, September 2017
• Speaker, “M&A Trends in Tech,” ATC Global Software Corporate Development Conference, May 2017
• Speaker, StartupFest, July 2016

Aly’s recent publications include:

• Contributor, “Why Private Equity Firms Still Love Enterprise Software,” PE Hub, 2023
• Contributor, “The Crystal Ball: VCs, Private Equity Investors, and Tech Founders Predict M&A Activity for 2023,” Fortune, 2023
• Contributor, “Goodwin Procter’s Poker Player Goes All In for Tech M&A,” Bloomberg 2022
• Contributor, “Big Tech Set to Shop for Discounted Startups,” Pitchbook, 2022
• Contributor, “In Their Own Words: 4 Women On Their Journeys As Attorneys,” Law360 Pulse, 2021
• Co-Author, “How Boards Can Help with Exit Transactions,” Corporate Secretary, 2018
• Author, “Five Tips to Prepare You for Selling Your Company,” VentureBeat, 2015
• Author, “Loopholes in Corporate Environmental Reporting and What is Being Done to Close Them: A Recent GAO Study Examines the Status of Environmental Reporting to the SEC and Suggests Improvements,” 17 Vill. Envt'l L.J. 331, 2006