Alexandru Stănescu

Work Highlights

Alexandru worked and studied in a wide span of legal areas including banking, capital markets, blockchain & cryptocurrency, EU consumer protection, financial instruments, and cross-border commercial international arbitration.

➔ Represented Allyis Technologies in a USD 125,000,000 transaction, as Tech Mahindra, the Indian lead provider of telecom solutions, outsourcing (call center), and IT services

➔ Advised Sessions on a highly complex deal that required our team`s dual specialization in US and Romanian jurisdictions, involving various stakeholders on both sides. Sessions has raised a USD 4,500,000 seed round led by Berlin`s Earlybird Venture Capital, London`s Stride VC., and Sofia`s LAUNCHub Ventures.

➔ Advised Yarooms, a global leading SaaS company in the hybrid workplace experience solutions on its EUR 2 million seed round led by GapMinder VC and Seedblink crowdfunding platform.

➔ Advised One Capital (JP), a Tokyo-based venture capital firm, on an equity investment of more than USD 2,500,000 in the innovative Romanian start-up TeleportHQ, a global B2B SaaS platform building the next-gen website creators solution via a collaborative platform for front-end development.

➔ Empowered Charger.ro`s growth on their EUR 245,000 pre-seed investment from Bravva Angels

➔ Assisted a digital assets exchange with its move of operations from Asia to the EU, by assisting with all crypto-related matters, namely AML/KYC rules and regulations, token qualifications, data privacy, enforcement agencies procedures, and overall commercial and corporate advice on national laws and EU Markets in Cryptoassets Regulation.

➔ Assisted Chilliz, the top marketplace and web3 solution for sports fans expansion on the Romanian market, by providing in-depth regulatory and compliance advice (including on AML/KYC, non-banking financial rules, payments, media, and advertising) advice on digital assets (including digital assets and NFTs).

➔ Acted as main legal expert on enforcing commercial contracts for the World Bank and helped draft the Doing Business Report.

➔ Worked closely with the European Investment Bank for the review of loan collateral and derivative collateral agreements based on their ISDA agreements.

➔ Represented a London-based blockchain company in commercial activities and developing their B2C and B2B offer for services.

Career

Alexandru graduated from the Faculty of Law of the University of Bucharest. He worked with RTPR-Allen Overy on banking regulations early in his career. He then pursued a tri-lingual MBA from Deusto University, Spain and an LLM. Alexandru was a visiting lawyer in the London office of Baker Botts, covering arbitration and corporate matters. Prior to that, Alexandru worked for the World Bank in Trade and Competitiveness, covering competition law and policy, insolvency, enforcing contracts for doing business. He clerked for the European Court of Justice and European Investment Bank. Alexandru was a Fulbright scholar and Wien Corporate Responsibility Fellow at Columbia Law School where he obtained the Masters Degree in Law.

Professional Memberships

New York Bar Association

Bucharest Bar Association

Languages Spoken

> Romanian

> English - Fluent

> French -Fluent

> Italian - Fluent

> Spanish -Fluent

Practice Areas

Tech, Fintech & Deep Tech namely:

Blockchain & Distributed Ledger Technology; Software as a Service (SaaS); Venture Capital Deals for Fintech and Technology Startups and VCs; Payment Systems, Processors, E-Money Institutions and and Digital Assets Payments; Regulatory Compliance (including Financial markets, Anti-Money Laundering, Markets in Crpyto-Assets Regulation, Transfer of Funds Regulation and Consumer Protection); Smart Contracts and Decentralized Applications (dApps) and DAOs; M&A in the Tech Sector.

Experience

Alexandru Stanescu focuses on investments and commercial, corporate and dispute resolution for the technology. He is a board member of ThinkBLOCKtank (the European lawyers blockchain association based in Luxembourg), member of INATBA and the Blockchain Lawyers Group (a closed club of blockchain lawyers from more than 80 countries).

He was co-founder and CLO at Ginplatform. io – the world’s first masternode automatic set-up solution for more than 100 blockchains. GINcoin is a layer 1 protocol with more than 3000 nodes and a community of more than 8000 users. He regularly advises CEE blockchain start-ups and scale-ups, especially on commercial and strategic matters related to structuring, issuances and AML/KYC. His clients are crypto exchanges, payment providers, cryptoasset managers, NFT providers and native token issuers, tokenization asset providers. He also advises on corporate governance and privacy for decentralised projects and communities (DAOs)

He also provides assistance to companies seeking to establish themselves in the US market, as he is a New York licensed attorney. Alexandru has worked with the World Bank, covering competition (Competition Council), capital markets (worked with ASF in Romania), Ministry of Finance and Secretariat General of the Government. He has frequently advised VCs and tech startups on pre-seeed, seed and Series A financing.

Clients

Web 3 / Blockchain-related clients active in the following areas:

➔ Crypto- Exchanges:

➔ Fiat on ramps and banking as a service

➔ Digital Assets & Cryptocurrency

➔ Tokenization and NTFs (various industries: music, carbon emissions, green energy production, retail, tokenization crowdfunding mechanisms, real estate, tokenized funds, fractional NFTs )

➔ Blockchain development

➔ Crypto asset managers and crypto-derivatives traders

➔ Digital Engagement Practices

➔ PSD2 players including Payment processors and E-Money institutions

➔ Web3 Venture Capital and Hedge Funds

Selection of Web 2 Tech Clients

❏ Electronic goods Xiaomi

❏ SaaS and marketplaces: Yarooms, Zero Fund, Charger.ro, Flixbus Gmbh, Sessions Inc, TeleportHQ, NAOLOGIC Inc., Nooka Spaces

❏ IT product development : TechMahindra, Softehnica, Baza7, Softehnica, Easy Data Integration, MindIT, Vitamin Software, Trencadis, NordLogic, Corebuild, WayDevInc - on both RO and US & EU commercial operations.

❏ Cybersecurity

❏ Food Tech (Bluana - plant-based sashimi and sushi)

Expert in these Jurisdictions

Central Eastern European area

European Union

Romania

United States

New York

Publications

Global Legal Insights - Blockchain & Crypto Currency Regulation 2023 (5th Edition) - The emergence of DAOs: From legal structuring to dispute resolution (co-author with Tudor Velea)

Lexology (former Law Reviews) - Virtual Currency Regulation: Romania

Legal 500 - Comparative Guide: Romania Blockchain

Cointelegraph - Blockchain tech in national elections: An experience from Romania

Personal

Believer in a better society through sound policy making and disruptive technologies.

Plurilingual. Bringing the experience in shaping legal and economic policies to a career in international decentralized business solutions and new tech adoption.

Education