Jonathan Lipnick

Jonathan S. Lipnick is a Partner at Kirkland & Ellis, the largest and most active investment funds law firm in the world, with more than 620 dedicated global fund formation attorneys — nearly double the scale of the next leading law firm. Kirkland advises over 1,100 private capital sponsors and has been ranked Band 1 in Fund Formation for 18 consecutive years, making it the industry’s dominant platform for venture, growth equity and private markets.​ At Kirkland, Jon is one of the leaders of the firm’s venture capital fund formation group, where he advises top-tier managers on fundraising strategy, management company architecture, cross-product structuring, governance, regulatory risk management, succession planning and LP negotiations. He has advised Andreessen Horowitz on the formation of its third Cultural Leadership Fund and helped lead a $500 million strategic venture partnership between Eli Lilly and Andreessen Horowitz focused on backing companies from seed through growth. Jon also co-led the Kirkland team representing General Catalyst on roughly $8 billion of new capital for its GC XII venture platform and related separately managed accounts, including multi-billion-dollar flagship funds and bespoke SMAs, as well as the $670 million Health Assurance Fund II.​ His clients and leading directories describe him as an “unbelievably hard-working, smart lawyer” whose ability to simplify complex issues enables fund sponsors to scale with institutional precision. Jon’s practice spans fund formation, secondaries, GP-stakes transactions, liquidity solutions and strategic advisory to investment leadership teams, with a particular focus on large venture and growth equity platforms, continuation vehicles and manager-level transactions. By leveraging Kirkland’s unparalleled market data and proprietary precedent engine — powered by the highest fundraising volume of any law firm globally — Jon provides sponsors with insights few others can match, including LP preference trends, fee and term benchmarks, governance playbooks and GP ownership and compensation models.​ He is a frequent thought leader and guest speaker at industry institutions including Harvard Business School’s VC & Private Equity Conference, TechGC’s L Suite and VCGC conferences, PEI’s Private Funds CFO Forum Venture Circle, the Harvard Undergraduate Venture Capital Group, Boston University Questrom School of Business and Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. Jon regularly speaks on the state of venture markets, fundraising through volatility, secondaries and continuation funds, and the impact of evolving SEC private fund rules on emerging and established managers. Earlier in his career, Jon represented venture-backed companies on formation and financing, giving him a rare dual perspective across both founders and fund managers.​ At YXS Capital, Jon serves as a core legal and strategic partner, ensuring the firm’s structures, incentives, compliance architecture and governance are built for enduring institutional scale. Drawing on his experience with blue-chip sponsors such as Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst and Eli Lilly–backed platforms, he helps position YXS to meet the expectations of the world’s most sophisticated LPs and to develop one of the next great global investment platforms.