Venture capital fund Highland Europe has hired Josephine Healy as general counsel, replacing Rini Banerjee who left the business earlier this year.

Healy joins from Osborne Clarke, where she was an associate director in its tech venture capital and M&A business. At Highland Europe she will be responsible for leading the legal function, including overseeing the fund’s investments and exit transactions and other operational matters.

Highland Europe is a venture capital fund that invests in growth-stage tech and consumer companies. Since launching in 2012, it has raised close to €3bn, backing companies such as Huel, WeTransfer and Cobalt.io.

Healy said: “The past few years in the VC industry have been a fascinating varied environment, from increasing regulatory scrutiny to the growing complexity of transactions and the peaks of 2021 to the subsequent funding slowdown. With little sign of the regulatory backdrop easing, especially in the US, the UK and across Europe, venture-backed and scaling tech companies will continue to need proactive legal support, particularly as they enter new markets.”

She added: “Having worked with Highland closely over the years, I’m delighted to now join full time as general counsel and support the team, our investors, as well as the wider portfolio to keep building amazing companies while delivering strong returns.”

Healy spent six years at Osborne Clarke, originally joining as an associate before becoming a senior associate in 2021 and then associate director last year. She also spent six months at Highland Europe last year as a secondee.

Before arriving at Osborne Clarke, Healy spent just under three years at Shoosmiths where she started her legal career.

Banerjee, meantime, left in April to create Safal, where she provides fractional GC services to venture capital funds and start-ups. She is currently fractional GC at Transition (climate transition), Cabrit Capital (blockchain in the real world) and Queen (in stealth). 

Banerjee combines her experience as a dealmaker across multiple jurisdictions from seed to IPO stage and from investment to exit, as well as her experience in fundraising and limited partner management (with more than $6bn of capital raised), ESG and DEI, and portfolio company support to advise selected funds. She also runs a pro-bono practice to help founders from underprivileged, underrepresented and neurodivergent backgrounds get a termsheet check to ensure they are being fairly treated.

She spent just under two years as GC at Highland Europe, having previously spent just under eight years as senior legal counsel at global venture capital firm Index Ventures. She started her legal career at Freshfields in London and also worked at AstraZeneca, London Stock Exchange and Endemol Group.

In other recent investment-related in-house moves, US asset manager Vanguard hired Tonya Robinson as GC from KPMG, replacing Anne Robinson who left for IBM earlier this year.