JOIN USSpice Route Legal - flirting with legal advisory
Legal services never go out of trend, and there is always a right time to do so. This is what happened in 2016, when Praveen Raju and Mathew Chacko collaborated to start Spice Route Legal.
A law firm with offices in Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Delhi and extensive affiliations across Southeast Asia, China, Japan, Europe and the Americas, the company is built on the idea that modern commerce respects neither jurisdictional boundaries nor traditional notions of compartmentalised competence. “Therefore, we are cross-jurisdictional, multi-disciplinary and focused on providing effective, efficient and practical transactional, advisory and regulatory legal assistance,” says Chacko, Lead Partner, Techonology, Media and Telecommunication.
The startup specialises in legal services, mergers and acquisitions, private equity, venture capital, intellectual property, media and entertainment, telecommunications, and foreign direct investments, among others.
Like any other law firm, the company focuses on service income from the client. “What really makes us different is our startup-friendly cross-border team. The startup team at the firm is comprised primarily of geeks who know the law — former hackers, cryptographers, data analysts and algorithm junkies,” adds Chacko.
We are constantly at the cutting edge of technology — members of the team started working with blockchain companies at a time blockchain was used only by Satoshi Nakamoto, and most cryptographers working on distributed database had not realised the enormous potential of the advancements they were making. Today, we assist a leading blockchain infrastructure company based out of China, a blockchain-based data security company based out of Mumbai, and various early-stage startups in India and Southeast Asia.
The founders, having spent a considerable time with global law firms in Singapore and the UK, felt that the Indian legal market lacked a firm which could perform international transactions from India. “Spice Route Legal was formed on the idea that artificial national boundaries inefficiently constrain economic growth and technological advancement, and therefore, most startups ought to conceive of themselves as global players and act accordingly. And startups focused on global domination require legal advisers who have a global perspective. And, that was the segment Spice Route Legal focused on — an international law firm for Indian clients and vice versa,” he says.
The company closed deals totalling $100 million in first quarter of the calender year 2017, and filed over 100 patent and trade mark applications in India and coordinated trade mark and patent filings in over 50 countries.
The company currently employs 15 lawyers across its three offices.