Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas advises Softbank on investment in Series G round in One97 Communications Limited

India’s largest full-service law firm Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas acted as the legal counsel to Softbank Vision Fund on a primary investment of USD 200 million in the Series G funding round of One97 Communications Limited (One97). One97 raised USD 1 billion in this round, which also saw participation from Alibaba Group (Alipay and Ant Financial), T Rowe Price Associates, Inc. and Discovery Capital.

The General Corporate, Financial Regulatory, Intellectual Property, Competition Law and Taxation Practices of Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas advised on the Transaction.

The Transaction team was led by Shishir Vayttaden, Partner; K. Aishwarya, Partner; with support from Surbhi Ajitsaria, Associate; and Meenakshi Ramkumar, Associate.

Shishir Vayttaden, Partner; K. Aishwarya, Partner; also advised on conducting a diligence on the Company and its approximately 17 subsidiaries/affiliates, with support from Aayush Kumar, Senior Associate; Ayushi Sutaria, Senior Associate; Meghmala Singh, Consultant; Surbhi Ajitsaria, Associate; Meenakshi Ramkumar, Associate and  Banashree Hazarika, Associate.

The Financial Regulatory Practice led by Garima Joshi, Partner; and Rohan Banerjee, Partner; with support from Sarthak Singhdeo, Associate assisted in diligence of certain financial services business.

The Intellectual Property team led by Ranjan Negi, Partner & Head – Intellectual Property; with support from Rekha Dabas, Director; Prashant Jha, Principal Associate; Pranav Taneja, Associate; Akshi Seem, Associate; Isha Malik, Associate assisted in undertaking an IP diligence.

The Competition Law team was led by Avaantika Kakkar, Partner; and Anshuman Sakle, Partner; with support from Aishwarya Gopalakrishnan, Principal Associate; Neelambera Sandeepan, Senior Associate; and Shubhankar Jain, Associate advised on competition law issues.

Arun Prabhu, Partner; assisted with aspects relating to diligence of online gaming business.

Mr. PK Bagga, Senior Consultant, advised from regulatory perspective.  Bharath Reddy, Partner; assisted with review of ESOP related aspects. SR Patnaik, Partner & Head – Taxation assisted with certain tax related queries.

One97 is the parent company of Indian digital payments leader Paytm. The payment platform is currently serving merchants in over 2000 towns and cities spanning across 650 districts in India. With this investment, the company hopes to bring low-cost mobile enabled financial services to rural India.

Other advisors involved in the Transaction include Morrison & Foerster LLP.

The Transaction was signed on 17^th December 2019.