Cooley Advises Yelp in its Initial Public Offering

San Francisco, Calif. — Mar. 2, 2012 — Cooley LLP is pleased to announce it advised Yelp Inc. (NYSE: YELP) in its initial public offering of common stock.  Yelp’s common stock began trading on the New York Stock Exchange today.
 
Goldman, Sachs & Co. is the lead bookrunning manager and representative of the underwriters for the offering. Citigroup Global Markets Inc. and Jefferies & Company, Inc. are joint bookrunning managers, and Allen & Company LLC and Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. are co-managers for the offering.
 
Cooley business partners Craig Jacoby, Kenneth Guernsey and David Peinsipp led the team advising Yelp, which also included Amanda Busch, Wendy Davis, Robert Jones, Ashlie Lawton, Siana Lowrey, Christopher Yamaoka and Eric Steiner. The Cooley team members are based in the firm’s San Francisco, Palo Alto and Reston offices.

About Yelp

Yelp connects people with great local businesses. Yelp users have contributed a total of approximately 25 million cumulative reviews of almost every type of local business, from restaurants, boutiques and salons to dentists, mechanics, plumbers and more. These reviews are written by people using Yelp to share their everyday local business experiences, giving voice to consumers and bringing “word of mouth” online. The information these reviews provide is valuable for consumers and businesses alike. Approximately 66 million unique visitors used Yelp’s website, and its mobile application was used on approximately 5.7 million unique mobile devices, on a monthly average basis during the fourth quarter of 2011. Businesses, both small and large, use Yelp’s platform to engage with consumers at the critical moment when they are deciding where to spend their money. Yelp’s business revolves around three key constituencies: the contributors who write reviews, the consumers who read them and the local businesses that they describe.

About Cooley LLP

Cooley's 650 attorneys have an entrepreneurial spirit and deep, substantive experience, and are committed to solving clients' most challenging legal matters. From small companies with big ideas to international enterprises with diverse legal needs, Cooley has the breadth of legal resources to enable companies of all sizes to seize opportunities in today's global marketplace. The firm represents clients across a broad array of dynamic industry sectors, including technology, life sciences, venture capital, clean energy, real estate and retail.
 
The firm has full-service offices in major business and technology centers across the United States in Palo Alto, CA, New York, NY, San Diego, CA, San Francisco, CA, Reston, VA, Broomfield, CO, Washington, DC, Boston, MA and Seattle, WA.  The firm also has an office in Shanghai, China.

Cooley’s Public Offerings practice

Cooley's Public Offerings practice group represents high-growth companies seeking to raise capital through public offerings of equity and debt securities. It comprises around 70 lawyers nationwide. 

In 2011, Cooley LLP was involved in 32 public offerings, with a combined amount of more than $4.1 billion. Recent issuer-side IPOs Cooley has completed, along with the March 2012 IPO for Yelp, include Zynga's $1 billion IPO in December 2011, and Epocrates' $85.8 million IPO, NeoPhotonics' $82.5 million IPO and AcelRx's $40 million IPO, all in February 2011. Recent underwriter-side IPOs include Proto Labs’ $79.1 million IPO in February 2012, Tangoe's $87.7 million IPO in July 2011, LinkedIn Corporation's $352 million IPO in May 2011, Convio's $46 million IPO in April 2010.

Over the past decade, Cooley has provided legal counsel to issuers on approximately 230 offerings, giving the Firm deep expertise in a full range of issues involved in bringing public offerings to market. Cooley’s practice is consistently recognized nationally for the number of completed IPOs and public offerings. In addition, Cooley has represented investment banks as the underwriters of more than 150 offerings.
http://www.cooley.com/publicofferings