Foley Hoag Launches TEC@FoleyHoag, a Collaborative for Technology Companies, Entrepreneurs and Investors in Boston’s Innovation District

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Foley Hoag LLP today unveiled the first collaborative in Boston’s burgeoning Innovation District, bringing together technology companies, entrepreneurs and investors working to transform today’s promising ideas into tomorrow’s success stories.

“A regular, high quality networking event is a terrific opportunity to nurture our local tech ecosystem”

Modeled after West Coast-style networking events, Foley Hoag’s Technology & Entrepreneurship Collaborative (known as TEC@FoleyHoag) will feature monthly and ongoing programs in the Innovation District. The programs will be both educational and networking in nature.

The monthly programs will kick off with an invitation-only inaugural networking event on Thursday, Feb. 28 at Foley Hoag’s offices in the Innovation District. Scott Kirsner, author of the “Innovation Economy” column in the Boston Globe, will be TEC@FoleyHoag’s inaugural speaker. Kirsner will present on “Boston's Innovation Ecosystem circa 2013: What's happening, and What You Can Do."

By founding the collaborative, Foley Hoag continues its long tradition of helping technology startups and emerging growth companies succeed while supporting the Innovation District’s goal of becoming a national center of technology entrepreneurship. Foley Hoag played a key role in developing the Innovation District’s infrastructure and was the first major law firm headquartered there. The firm offers partner-level counsel to entrepreneurs and investors in information technology, biotechnology, life sciences and cleantech.

“A regular, high quality networking event is a terrific opportunity to nurture our local tech ecosystem,” said Paul Sweeney, co-chair of Foley Hoag’s Technology Practice. “With TEC@FoleyHoag, our goal is to help make Massachusetts even stronger in the fierce competition for attracting technology investment and the nation’s most innovative entrepreneurs.”

Foley Hoag’s heritage in helping technology companies started more than 40 years ago when the firm took its first technology company public. The firm now counts more than 500 technology clients in its portfolio. They rely on Foley Hoag to provide a complete lifecycle of legal counsel, from setting up a corporation, to securing venture capital, to building business partnerships, all the way to exits.

“The Boston area has always had the talent and resources to support an entrepreneurial technology culture, and Foley Hoag has been at the center of this culture for decades. Now the entrepreneurial community will have a center of gravity: a place where entrepreneurs know they can network with other entrepreneurs and investors, and where investors can learn about promising new businesses,” said Bill Kolb, managing partner at Foley Hoag. “TEC@FoleyHoag is creating that common ground for New England’s startup tech industry.”

The Innovation District is a 1,000-acre waterfront area in the South Boston neighborhood adjacent to downtown Boston. Scheduled to open in 2013, the Boston Innovation Center (BIC) will provide 10,000 square feet of event and meeting space for entrepreneurial events. The BIC, a Foley Hoag client, will help link the Innovation District to Cambridge’s Kendall Square, the area’s other hotbed of technological entrepreneurialism.

TEC@FoleyHoag’s monthly networking events will showcase entrepreneurial “heroes,” leading technology venture capitalists and industry experts.

“You would think with so many of us in one place that we’d get together to trade ideas and compare experiences, but there isn’t a forum that regularly brings us together. TEC@FoleyHoag will change all that. Compelling speakers that appeal to entrepreneurs and investors will spark a lot of energy and activity,” said Tom Burgess, founder of Linkable Networks, a venture-backed company located in the Innovation District.

About Foley Hoag LLP

Foley Hoag is a dynamic law firm that represents public and private clients in a wide range of disputes and transactions worldwide. We have expertise in industries such as technology, life sciences and healthcare, energy and renewables, investment management, and professional services. We also offer our clients market-leading international litigation and arbitration and corporate social responsibility services. From our offices in Boston, Washington, D.C. and Paris, and our Emerging Enterprise Center in Waltham, Massachusetts, we provide strategic legal advice that is tailored to each of our client’s unique goals. Foley Hoag combines powerful regional, national and international practices that share a common emphasis on client service. We are focused on what we do best: helping our clients succeed through the delivery of exceptional legal service. For more information, visit www.foleyhoag.com.