Matthew H.J. Kim

Of Counsel
Email: mkim@hkw-law.com
Phone: 770-953-0995

Matthew Kim is Of Counsel in the firm’s Business Transactions practice group. He advises businesses, founders, executives, and investors on mergers and acquisitions, private equity transactions, corporate governance, commercial transactions, strategic alliances, licensing, financing, and other matters arising throughout the business lifecycle.

Matthew brings a distinctive business perspective to his legal practice developed through senior in-house, executive, and entrepreneurial roles. He has served as Executive Vice President and General Counsel, General Counsel, founder, CEO, and Chairman, providing him with firsthand experience navigating the legal and business issues facing executives and boards. His experience spans emerging growth, venture-backed, private equity-backed, and public companies across healthcare, life sciences, diagnostics, software, SaaS, and technology.

Prior to joining the firm, Matthew served as Executive Vice President and General Counsel of M3, where he established the company’s first in-house legal function and led legal strategy and execution for its first private equity transaction. He also advised the company on corporate restructuring, executive compensation, strategic alliances, commercial transactions, governance, and other strategic initiatives. Earlier, as General Counsel of private equity-backed CoreView, Matthew established and led the company’s legal function while advising on corporate governance, strategic partnerships, commercial transactions, enterprise risk, and corporate development.

Matthew’s experience also includes founding and serving as Chairman and CEO of Vigilant Biosciences, a venture-backed proteomic diagnostics company. He led the company from formation through institutional financing, product commercialization, and clinical development, raising more than $18 million in institutional capital and securing more than $3 million in NIH grant funding. His responsibilities included financing transactions, corporate governance, licensing and strategic alliances, intellectual property, regulatory strategy, and building the company’s executive leadership team and Board of Directors.

Having served both as counsel to businesses and as the executive responsible for business outcomes, Matthew understands that legal advice must work in the context of a client’s broader commercial objectives. He takes a practical, business-oriented approach to helping clients evaluate risk, structure transactions, solve complex problems, and pursue long-term strategic goals.

Representative Experience

Led legal strategy and execution for a company’s first private equity transaction, including transaction structuring, due diligence, negotiation, closing, and post-closing matters.
Advised companies on mergers and acquisitions, corporate development initiatives, strategic investments, corporate restructurings, and executive equity arrangements.
Structured and negotiated strategic alliances, joint ventures, OEM and channel arrangements, technology licenses, and other complex commercial relationships, including Microsoft co-sell and Azure Marketplace arrangements.
Advised venture-backed and emerging growth companies on institutional and seed financings, investor negotiations, corporate governance, and board matters.
Counseled healthcare, life sciences, diagnostics, SaaS, and technology companies on complex commercial transactions, intellectual property and licensing, strategic partnerships, regulatory strategy, and commercialization.
Advised executive leadership teams and boards of private equity-backed, venture-backed, and emerging growth companies on transactions, governance, enterprise risk, and strategic initiatives.

Bar Admissions

Georgia
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Registered Patent Attorney

Practice Areas

Business Transactions
Mergers & Acquisitions
Private Equity
Venture Capital
Corporate Governance
Commercial Transactions
Strategic Alliances & Joint Ventures
Corporate Finance & Capital Formation
Technology Transactions
Licensing & Intellectual Property Transactions
Outside General Counsel Services

Education

Columbia Business School Executive Education – Certificate in Mergers & Acquisitions
Georgia State University College of Law – Juris Doctorate
Washington University in St. Louis – Bachelor of Arts in Biology