BlackOak
Partners

Strategic advisory for founders and CEOs navigating capital, legal infrastructure, investor communications, and what comes next.

We work with founders and CEOs at the moments where the decisions get consequential—on capital, positioning, legal infrastructure, and what comes next. Most of our clients are raising, scaling, or doing both at the same time.

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Approach

The work behind the work.

Most founders at a crossroads don’t need another opinion. They need a voice with experience from the other side of the table—someone who understands not just how these decisions play out, but what the long-term picture looks like. Someone who can help you see the forest from the trees, think in longer arcs, and get in the weeds while you stay focused on leading.

Every engagement is informed by years spent on the investor side—evaluating deals, sitting in board meetings, and seeing firsthand what the long-term picture looks like for companies that raise and scale versus those that don’t. We bring that lens to every conversation.

Some engagements are narrow and defined. Others expand across workstreams as the company’s needs evolve. What doesn’t change is the standard of work—or the expectation that it moves at the pace your company actually operates.

Focus Areas

Where we typically engage.

A starting point, not a ceiling.

Fundraising Strategy
Raise readiness, investor materials, SAFE and financing strategy, and data room preparation—built around how investment decisions actually get made, not how founders assume they do.
Operational Alpha
Operational clarity before structural problems become leadership problems. Organizational design, process development, and the blocking and tackling of getting a company ready for its next phase.
Growth Strategy
Positioning and narrative for customers, investors, and strategic partners. Financial modeling to frame scenarios and inform decisions on structure and dilution. Strategic planning with the operational specificity to actually execute against.
Transaction Advisory
Exit preparation before inbound interest becomes a live process. Deal process support through diligence, coordinated with counsel. Waterfall and cap table analysis so founders know what a deal means before they sign.
Legal Operations
Engaging and managing outside legal counsel so founders aren’t navigating it alone (e.g., vendor agreements, equity documentation, data room organization, cap table hygiene)—especially as law firm rates climb and AI becomes a tempting but incomplete substitute.
How We Work

Engagements built for the real work.

Engagements typically start as a defined project or sprint—scoped tightly, integrated quickly, and producing real work from day one. Most clients move into an ongoing advisory relationship that maintains momentum and ensures continuity across priorities.

We’re deliberate about the engagements we take on. A single project is a reasonable place to begin.

Team

Founded on experience across the table.

BlackOak Partners was founded by Liam Reilly—former investment principal and general counsel at a multi-fund venture firm with over $100M in AUM deployed. He oversaw more than 20 investments, sat in the board meetings, and worked directly with founders and CEOs across 50+ portfolio companies.

That background—operating simultaneously as investor, general counsel, and board advisor—shapes how we approach every engagement. Founders shouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel on the things we’ve seen dozens of times. The best practices are already there. We bring them in, apply them where they fit, and save the hard thinking for the decisions that are actually new.

Liam Reilly
Liam Reilly
Founding Partner
Previously: investment principal and general counsel at a multi-fund VC. Now: the person in your corner.
Contact

Let’s talk.

If you’re navigating a raise, a strategic inflection, or the operational and legal infrastructure that has to be in place before either—we’d welcome the conversation.

Email Us