2 ASIAN LEGAL BUSINESS – INDIA E-MAGAZINE JULY-AUGUST 2024 Every time you step onto a street in Bengaluru, you encounter a new, larger pothole on the road, a fresh ‘Darshini’ or brewery serving the ever-growing demand for filter coffee and beer, and a new startup, introducing the latest technological innovation from around the world to the Indian market. The city’s meteoric rise over the last three decades has seen it grow from a retirement paradise with great weather, lakes and parks to a global technology hub, home to India’s top young minds and most successful unicorns like Ola, Flipkart, Swiggy and Razorpay. This entrepreneurial spirit has created an ideal growth ecosystem, spawning over 10,000 startups, with a community of technology experts, global finance professionals, and private capital driving forward the city’s vision to lead global tech development. In 2020, over $10 billion was invested into ventures located here - surpassing even San Francisco and London. has found a home in Bengaluru. Leading fintech businesses, including RazorPay, Groww, CRED, PhonePe, Paytm Money and Zerodha have all been incubated in the city. Bengaluru firms are advising these new age fintech companies on the constantly evolving regulatory changes coming from the Reserve Bank of India, and ensuring businesses are structured efficiently and in compliance with applicable laws, she says. As this tech market has grown, more companies are raising funds to fuel expansion. To find the most attractive companies to invest in, venture capitalists have set up operations in the city to make access to capital easier. For lawyers, this means more private equity and fund management work in Bengaluru, Balaji says. “There used to be an impression that since SEBI is in Mumbai, these practices will be better-placed there, but now everything is online, including regulatory filings and communication, and can easily be done from Bengaluru,” says Balaji, who has advised multiple funders on their SEBI requirements, says. The city has birthed its own set of law firms that cater to this market. Samvad Partners, NovoJuris Legal, Spice Route Legal, and Triumvir Law all started as small boutiques catering to growing startups and have since grown into fullservice firms that help tech companies through their entire growth cycle – from raising angel funds and company registration, venture capital and private equity deal structuring, all the way to international expansion and listing on public markets. GROWTH STRATEGIES This growth has also aligned with that of India’s top law firms in the city, including Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, which has one of the largest practices in the city with 27 partners, and has moved to a larger office space this month. Bengaluru-based Vivek Chandy, comanaging partner of JSA Advocates & Solicitors, one of the first entrants into the city around 25 years ago, says the firm is hunting for new office space as well, as it looks to expand its offering in the city. NAMMA LAWYERS: HOW BANGALORE HAS GROWN INTO A THRIVING LEGAL HUB Bengaluru’s explosive tech scene, startup ecosystem, and craft beer culture have spawned a new breed of specialised lawyers, transforming the once-sleepy city into one of India’s most dynamic legal markets. This burgeoning legal landscape is attracting both homegrown and national law firms to establish and rapidly expand their presence in the Silicon Valley of India. BY NIMITT DIXIT Image: ANDY15/Shutterstock.com This start-up culture has deeply influenced the growth of the city’s legal market, creating a unique category of tech-forward lawyers who understand technology – how it is created, its disruptive capabilities and how it can best be structured to marry founders’ visions with an evolving regulatory landscape. ‘ANYTHING-TECH’ The legal market has expanded from its traditional litigation and real estate focus to catering to new age companies, from start-ups to unicorns, primarily in the tech and tech-enabled space, says Sharda Balaji, the founder of NovoJuris Legal, a home-grown Bengaluru firm set up in 2008. Bengaluru lawyers specialise in “anything-tech” says Balaji, explaining a rising demand for lawyers in the fin-tech, health-tech, insurance-tech, ed-tech, data privacy, artificial intelligence, SaaS space. While Mumbai remains the financial capital of India, financial technology
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