Recognized in Best Lawyers since 2022 
Richard C. Bruder is a business attorney in Troy, Michigan with Kemp Klein who works with entrepreneurs, investors, and closely held companies on complex business transactions and long-term growth planning. His practice focuses on Business Organizations (including LLCs and Partnerships), Closely Held Companies and Family Businesses Law, Mergers and Acquisitions Law, and Venture Capital Law. Richard represents growing companies, angel investors, venture capital funds, and second-stage businesses throughout Michigan and beyond.
Richard regularly advises entrepreneurs and investors on the formation and structuring of business organizations, negotiation and closing of venture capital and angel investment rounds, and the purchase or sale of privately held companies. He also assists family-owned and closely held businesses with succession planning, governance issues, and strategic transactions designed to support long-term stability and growth.
Clients often include high-growth entrepreneurs building emerging companies, business owners evaluating acquisition or sale opportunities, and established companies that frequently engage legal counsel as part of their operational strategy. Richard also works with investors and venture capital funds that finance early-stage and growth-stage businesses.
With more than 35 years of legal practice, Richard has been involved in hundreds of early-stage company financings and investment transactions. During his time with Kemp Klein, he has handled dozens of venture and angel funding rounds, often managing multiple transactions at various stages of negotiation and closing. These matters typically involve company formation and capitalization structures, investor rights agreements, governance planning, and the documentation required to complete financing transactions.
Richard also represents buyers and sellers in mergers and acquisitions involving privately held companies. His work includes structuring and negotiating asset sales, stock sales, leveraged recapitalizations, and related financing arrangements. Many of these transactions involve family-owned businesses, private equity investors, and closely held companies evaluating strategic exit opportunities.
His transactional experience includes matters such as the $26 million leveraged recapitalization and sale of a family-owned business to a private equity fund involving tax planning, Hart‑Scott‑Rodino filings, $11 million in commercial bank financing, and executive employment and real estate arrangements for the founding family; a $14.2 million asset sale of an advertising agency specializing in music programming and advertising services; a $21 million stock sale of a family-owned metal stamping company to a Chicago-based financial buyer with a reinvestment by members of the founding family; a $40 million asset sale of a video duplication company to a global media producer involving a fulfillment agreement and third‑party software licensing negotiations; and a $20 million sale of a nationwide amusement business as part of an industry consolidation strategy. Richard has also assisted with numerous angel and venture financing rounds ranging from approximately $750,000 to $3 million for technology, software, and consumer product companies, along with additional transactions involving venture investments, asset and stock sales, and real estate financing in the $1 million to $10 million range.
Richard serves as counsel to several venture investment funds, including Plymouth Venture Partners I, LLC, Plymouth Venture Partners II, LP, Plymouth Venture Partners III, LP, and Plymouth Growth Partners IV. He has also served as counsel to funds associated with the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, including The Frankel Fund and the Social Venture Fund.
