Christopher "Chris" L. Lucas

Chris is a partner and co-chair of the firm’s Venture, Innovation, Technology + Life Sciences Lending (VITALS) team, a subgroup within the firm’s Finance + Banking practice. In his co-chair role, he helps lead the VITALS team’s strategic focus on representing lenders active in the technology and life sciences markets. As a Knowledge Management AI (KMAI) partner for the Finance + Banking practice, Chris helps develop AI-enabled legal tools and deal intelligence systems that enhance the firm’s transactional capabilities.

Chris represents a wide range of institutional and noninstitutional lenders in commercial finance transactions, including term loans, revolving credit facilities, multicurrency loans, letters of credit, financings, factoring arrangements, and loan workouts and restructurings. He also advises on bankruptcy and creditors’ rights issues that arise in connection with these financings.

Chris focuses his practice on technology lending and venture debt financing, drawing on more than 20 years of experience in venture debt and the innovation economy. He has extensive experience acting for a broad range of venture debt providers, including commercial banks and private credit and venture debt funds. He regularly represents lenders providing multimillion-dollar lines of credit and term loans to early-stage, growth-stage, later-stage, and public companies in sectors such as software and hardware, SaaS and HaaS, cybersecurity, fintech, constructech, agtech, edtech, pharmatech, cleantech, insurtech, and the broader health care and life sciences industries.

In addition to venture lending, Chris has significant experience in asset-based and commercial lending, real estate financings, factoring transactions, and secured loans to government contractors, venture capital and private equity firms, franchisees, high-net-worth individuals, and health care providers.

Chris frequently handles cross-border and multijurisdictional transactions. His experience includes financing transactions involving counterparties and collateral in jurisdictions such as Israel, Canada, the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Malaysia, and multiple European countries.

• Represented a lender in a $30 million cash-secured term loan to a life sciences company.
• Represented a secured lender in a $10 million recurring revenue line and $5 million growth capital facility to a fintech company and its Irish subsidiary.
• Represented a secured lender in the successful workout/restructuring of $170 million secured revolving and term loans.
• Represented a lender in a $20 million secured capex term loan to a LiDAR company.
• Represented a senior secured lender on a senior/mezzanine financing deal involving a $50 million term loan and a $25 million revolving line of credit for a life sciences company.
• Represented a secured lender in an $8 million factoring facility with inventory sublimit to a cleantech solar panel manufacturer.
• Represented a lender in a $4 million secured growth capital term loan to an agtech company.
• Represented a secured lender in a $6 million accounts receivable line of credit to a cleantech energy storage company and its Canadian subsidiary.
• Represented a lender in a $20 million cash-secured nonformula revolving line to a life sciences company.
• Represented a lender in a $7 million secured growth capital term loan and $5 million secured accounts receivable line of credit to a data storage company.
• Represented a secured lender in a $8 million term loan and a $5 million accounts receivable line of credit to an international edtech company.
• Represented a secured lender in a $3 million accounts receivable and purchase order line of credit to an online maternity products and clothing company.
• Represented a lender in a secured recurring revenue revolving line of credit of up to $15 million to a software company.
• Represented a factor in structuring a $14 million factoring facility with a government contractor.
• Represented a secured lender in a $10 million nonformula revolving line of credit and $1.5 million term loan facility to an insurtech company with multiple U.S. and foreign borrowers.
• Represented a secured lender in a $20 million revolving line of credit to an online hiring and interviewing company.
• Represented a lender in an $8 million secured growth capital term loan to an apparel e-commerce company.
• Represented a secured lender in a $3 million growth capital term loan to a SaaS-based data analytics platform company.
• Represented a secured lender in a $1 million HaaS facility to a consumer electronics company.
• Represented a secured lender in a $3 million nonformula revolving line to an online vacation rental company.
• Represented a lender in a $10 million “club” deal to a biomedical company.
• Represented a secured lender in a $20 million term loan to an online pet care company.
• Represented a lender in a $1 million secured growth capital term loan and $2 million accounts receivable line of credit to a cleantech software company focused on residential solar power.
• Represented a secured lender in a $20 million line of credit to a software company and its Australian subsidiary.
• Represented a secured lender in a $7 million term loan to a developer and manufacturer of autonomous robots.
• Represented agent banks in syndicated financings, with loan amounts from $45 million to $75 million.
• Represented a secured lender in a $2.5 million equipment term loan to a satellite manufacturer.
• Represented a senior secured lender in a $5 million term loan to a manufacturer of rockets for the deployment of satellites.
• Represented a lender in a bridge loan guaranteed by various venture capital investors and secured by funds pledged by additional venture capital investors.
• Represented an agent bank in a $65 million senior secured revolving credit facility to a government contracts company in which the multiple tranches of debt totaled approximately $630 million.
• Represented a secured lender in a $12.5 million accounts receivable and inventory line to an online baby products company.
• Represented a lender in a $1.25 million secured growth capital loan to a constructech company that manufactures 3D printers to construct buildings.
• Represented a pharmaceutical company that provided a $1 million term loan to a customer.
• Represented a lender in $10 million and $20 million multinational secured loan transactions secured by a blanket lien on all assets, including intellectual property and assets overseas in the United Kingdom.
• Represented a secured lender in a $1.5 million acquisition loan to a high-tech company to finance the acquisition of a competitor.
• Represented a national footwear retailer in a $20 million financing for working capital.
• Represented a lender on a workout and sale for a $1.8 million asset-based line of credit.
• Represented a secured lender in a €16.8 million capital call facility to a foreign venture capital firm to provide liquidity pending capital calls to various foreign partnerships.
• Represented a secured lender on a loan to finance construction of the Martin Luther King Jr. national monument in Washington, D.C.
• Represented a secured lender in a $45 million capital call facility to a venture capital firm to provide liquidity pending capital calls to various domestic and foreign partnerships.
• Represented a secured lender in the successful workout/restructuring of a $7.5 million asset-based loan.
• Represented a factor in structuring a $45 million factoring facility with a defense services contractor, guaranteed by affiliates in the UK and The Netherlands.
• Represented a lender in a $5 million secured growth capital term loan to a food supplement company.
• Represented a lender in the extension of a $10 million secured accounts receivable line of credit and a $7 million secured growth capital term loan to a consumer hardware company.
• Represented a lender in a $1.5 million secured term loan to a cloud infrastructure software company.
• Represented a senior secured lender on a senior/mezzanine financing deal involving a $20 million term loan and a $20 million revolving line of credit to a manufacturer of GPS tracking devices.
• Represented a lender in the extension of a $1 million secured capital call line of credit with a flex option to $6 million.
• Represented a secured lender in a $2 million growth capital term loan and a $1 million revolving line of credit to a software company.
• Represented a lender in an $8 million secured growth capital term loan to a manufacturer of virtual reality platforms.