Taylor Wessing Bratislava has advised GA Drilling on its recently-closed investment round that saw new significant investors enter the company, including a strong local private equity group (ARKON, a.s.), a venture capital fund (Slovak Venture Fund S.C.A.), and a global multi-asset class fund (InfraPartners Management). Majernik & Mihalikova advised ARKON, AKF Lawyers represented Slovak Venture Fund S.C.A., and Havel, Holasek & Partners represented existing GA Drilling shareholder Schoeller-Bleckmann Oilfield Equipment AG.
According to Taylor Wessing, its advice included "setting up the terms of the investment round, negotiating contractual/shareholders’ relationships between the current as well as the new shareholders, corporate advice, and assisting the company during due diligence exercises." Taylor Wessing's lawyers provided legal advice to the company GA Drilling, a. s. during its recent multi-million investment round.
GA Drilling is a high-tech company developing and commercializing the Plasmabit technology platform, which, according to Taylor Wessing, "enables massive time and cost savings compared to relevant existing drilling technologies and opens up vast new possibilities in oil & gas, geothermal energy, mining, and tunneling. Subscale field prototype and all components of GA Drilling’s core technology have been already demonstrated in drilling and casing milling. The team of 100+ professionals has successfully accomplished the first ever plasma milling underwater and the first ever plasma milling in HP/HT environment."
Igor Kocis, the co-founder and CEO of GA Drilling, claimed that "the successful investment round proves the technological progress and high potential of GA Drilling," and that "it accelerates achieving the next technology readiness level for validation and further prototype demonstration in the oil and gas environment."
Radovan Pala, Taylor Wessing Bratislava Managing Partner, commented that: "this investment round was immensely challenging given the fact that not only were new investors entering the company, but there was also a need to negotiate new contractual terms with the existing shareholders. There were several layers of relations between the different groups of shareholders, namely, the founders, seed investors, other existing shareholders and the new investors. This investment round would not have been successfully closed without the drive of all the parties involved and without their commitment to support further development of the GA Drilling company. Speaking on behalf of our team of lawyers involved in this transaction, it was a pleasure to work for one of the most promising technology companies and a possible unicorn.”
In addition to Pala, Taylor Wessing's team consisted of Partners Juraj Frindrich and Jan Lazur and Associate Marek Anderle.
The Majernik & Mihalikova team was led by Partner Katarina Mihalikova, supported by Associate Ivan Kormanik.
The AKF team was led by Partner Artur Fried, and included Rudolf Pfeffer and Rebecca Wilson.
