Private equity / VC

Desai & Diwanji advised British media conglomerate Daily Mail & General Trust’s investment arm DMG Information on its Rs 12.7 crore ($2m) infusion in Mumbai-based, non-brokerage, real estate company Liases Foras which was advised by DM Harish & Co.

D&D partner Siddharth Mody, senior associates Ashraf Lala and Rumma Panchmatia and associate Kumar Yashaswi acted for DMG Information.

DMH partner Anil Harish and associate Sohini Banerjee acted for Liases Foras.

DMG Information made its first strategic investment in May, in Chinese property information company Funcent, followed by investment of $3m in Propstack, reported Business Standard.

Last month Legally India reported that Desai & Diwanji had acted for DMG on its Rs 19 crore investment in commercial real estate company Propstack Services.

AZB & Partners Delhi partner Gautam Saha with senior associate Heena Singh has advised Hector Beverages, which has found big success in selling traditional Indian soft drinks in trendy and hygienic packaging and [ has raised Rs 107 crore ($17m) from Belgium’s Sofina and China’s Hillhouse Capital].

Goodwin Proctor Hong Kong partner Yash Rana advised Hillhouse.

Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas had advised the Grofers Group - a start-up that delivers groceries and other sundry items to homes from nearby shops - on its $36m investment by Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital and Apoletto Asia, which closed this week.

Tiger Global was advised by ARA Law managing partner Rajesh Begur and Gunderson Dettmer New-York based senior partner Steven L Baglio.

Sequoia in-house lawyers Tanmay Amar and Sandeep Kapoor briefed Bangalore-based Themis Associates, led by partner Chetan Nagendra, principal associate Ashwani Verma and senior associate Dheeraj Khanna.

Shardul Amarchand partners Prashant Gupta and Puja Sondhi, with principal associate designate Aayush Kapoor, and senior associates Sumeet Singh and Sushrut Biswal acted for the fast-growing e-commerce start-up.

J Sagar Associates (JSA) advised travel met search website Ixigo’’s owner Le Travenues Technology and its promoters Aloke Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar on its fundraising from mobile phone maker Micromax Informatics, which was advised by Indus Law.

Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) Mumbai-based corporate partner Anshuman Jaiswal advised Ixigo’’s existing investors SAIF Partners and MakeMyTrip.

JSA Bangalore partner Vivek K Chandy and senior associate Siddharth K Vedula acted for Ixigo.

Indus Delhi partner Gaurav Dani, senior associate Divya Varghese and associate Chitvan Bakshi acted for Micromax.

Micromax plans to invest between $500,000 and $20m in over 20 start-ups this year with the help of its newly installed mergers and acquisitions (M&As) team, reported Mint.

Desai & Diwanji advised British media conglomerate Daily Mail & General Trust’s investment arm DMG Information on its Rs 19 crore ($3m) infusion in Mumbai-based commercial real company Propstack Services which was advised by Hariani & Co.

D&D partner Siddharth Mody, senior associate Ashraf Lala and associates Manav Shah and Santosh Vijay acted for DMG Information.

Hariani & Co senior associate Abhijeet Sonawane and associate Bhanudey Kanwar acted for Propstack and the existing investors.

The online real estate market has recieved significant investment recently from funds, for example, online property classifieds companies Housing.com and Commonfloor.com have collectively raised over $130m since September 2014, reported Mint.

J Sagar Associates (JSA) advised and assisted NIIT Technologies on investing for 51 per cent stake in Incessant Technologies which was advised by DSK Legal.

JSA partner Lalit Kumar, senior associate Bharati Joshi and associate Ritika Arora acted for NIIT Technologies.

DSK partner Ajay Shaw and manager Salma Curmally acted for Incessant.

The deal was worth around Rs 250 crore, reported Mint.

Venture Intelligence, which tracks private equity transactions “involving India-based companies” has published its ranking for the first quarter of 2015.

IndusLaw advised India’s largest taxi aggregator Ola Cabs, backed by Japan’s Softbank Corp, in raising $314m (Rs 1,952 crore) from Russian Yuri Milner’s DST Global which was advised by AZB & Partners and Goodwin Procter.

Indus Delhi partner Gaurav Dani, senior associate Divya Varghese and associate Nitin Gera acted for Ola. AZB Mumbai partner Darshika Kothari and Goodwin partner Yash Rana acted for DST

Gunderson Dettemer partner Steven L Baglio and lawyer Melissa B Marks acted for new investor Internet Fund. Morrison Foerster of counsel James T McCormick and associate Noah Carr acted for SoftBank Internet and Media (SIMI).

In November 2014, Olacabs had raised $210m from SIMI and its existing investors including Tiger Global, Matrix Partners India and Steadview Capital.

Economic Laws Practice (ELP) advised alternate asset management firm Tano Capital on investing Rs 60 crore in India’s second NBFC microfinance institution Arohan which was advised by A&M Law Offices.

ELP partner Suhail Naithani, associate partner Vinayak Burman, senior associate Archana Khosla and associate Amoolya Narayan acted for Tano. A&M partner Viral Mehta and associate P Goel acted for Arohan.

Investors and stakeholders are increasingly becoming enthusiastic about microfinance institutions, reported the Business Standard.

Induslaw advised internet and mobile-based classifieds company Quikr Mauritius Holding in raising $150m (over Rs 900 crore) from existing investors Tiger Global, eBay and Sweden’s Kinnevik, and new investor Steadview Capital Management, LTR and ABG Capital, which were advised by Morgan Lewis and Gunderson Dettmer.

Indus partner Gaurav Dani, senior associate Dviya Varghese and associate Nikita Goyal acted for Quickr.

Morgan Lewis Boston partner William Perkins and associate Cindy C Kung advised eBay. Gunderson Beijing partner Christopher D Terry and lawyer Mao Chen acted for Tiger Global affiliate IFPL

The venture competes with Naspers-backed OLX in the P2P classifieds business in India, reported VCCircle.