John McKenna

John has been with Cooley for more than 25 years and practices corporate and securities law, with an emphasis on the representation of publicly traded companies and the investment banks involved with such companies. He has counseled public and private company clients in the full range of corporate and securities matters, including venture financing transactions, public offerings of equity and debt, employee incentive programs, M&A, strategic corporate relationships, Securities and Exchange Commission reporting and compliance, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance and corporate governance. John also is a retired CPA (Ernst & Young alum).

John’s representative matters since 2020 include:

Initial public offerings (IPOs), follow-on offerings, private investments in public equity (PIPEs) and debt offerings

• AvePoint in its S$260 million follow-on offering on the Singapore Exchange (SGX)
• The underwriters in Gladstone Capital’s $150 million debt offering
• SiTIme in its $402 million follow-on offering
• Talphera in its $29 million PIPE
• Thayer Ventures Acquisition Corp II in its $175 million IPO
• Talphera in its $15 million PIPE
• Surrozen in its $175 million PIPE
• NVIDIA in Nebius Group’s $700 million PIPE
• The placement agent in Big BearAI’s $182 million note exchange
• The underwriters in Capital Southwest’s $230 million debt offering
• Omnicell in its $172.5 million Rule 144a convertible note offering
• NVIDIA in Applied Digital’s $160 million PIPE
• Rani Therapeutics in its $30 million registered direct offering
• Surrozen in its $192.5 million PIPE
• The underwriters in Sagimet Biosciences’ $112 million follow-on offering
• The initial purchaser in PureCycle Technologies’ $250 million 144A convertible note offering
• The underwriters in Sagimet’s $85 million IPO
• SI-Bone in its $96 million follow-on offering
• The underwriters in Establishment Labs’ $90 million follow-on offering
• Vaxcyte in its $575 million follow-on offering
• Enovix in its $173 million Rule 144A convertible note offering
• The placement agent in Porch Group’s $333 million private note offering
• The underwriters in Prothena’s $211 million follow-on offering

At-the-Market Programs (ATMs) and Equity Lines of Credit (ELOCs)

John also has advised numerous companies and sales agents on the establishment of at-the-market programs for raising capital in the aggregate of $4 billion and equity lines of credit for raising capital in the aggregate of $500 million.

Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs)

John also has advised AppHarvest, AvePoint, Archer Aviation, Complete Solaria, ConvergeOne, Enovix, Immunovant, IonQ, Kaleyra, Nuvation Bio and Origin Materials on their completed mergers with SPACs.

Credentials

John received a JD in 1996, cum laude, from the Boston University School of Law, where he served as an article editor for the Journal of Science & Technology Law. He received a BS in business administration, with a finance concentration, from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo in 1989.

Before attending law school, John worked in the Los Angeles and Palo Alto offices of Ernst & Young.

John is a member of the State Bar of California and is a former certified public accountant in the state of California.