Southeast Asia - Singapore

Dentons Rodyk

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Dentons Rodyk is a leading presence in Singapore and the wider Southeast Asia region when advising prominent venture-backed entities across the spectrum of the investment life-cycle, from seed and advanced stages to trade sales, IPOs and SPACs. Particularly noteworthy for its cross-border transactional expertise, joint practice head S Sivanesan is highly sought after by founders, entrepreneurs, start-ups, capital and private equity funds. India-related transaction expert Sunil Rai is a go-to lawyer for high-growth emerging entities and unicorns in the region, while Li Chuan Hsu is particularly well-regarded for his experience in handling transactions with a Chinese nexus.

Legal 500 Editorial commentary

Testimonials

Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.

  • 'They have demonstrated a high degree of competence and enthusiasm with our transactions, able to close them out effectively and efficiently.'

Key clients

  • OT Management LLC
  • NextBillion.ai
  • Shinhan Venture Investment
  • UNOAsia
  • University of Tokyo Edge Capital Partners
  • Maven Capital Partners
  • Validus Investment Holdings Pte. Ltd.
  • Wavemaker Impact
  • 35 Venture B.V.
  • Investible Early-Stage Fund 2, LP

Work highlights

  • Advised and acted for market-leading peer-to-peer lending platform Validus Investment Holdings Pte. Ltd. in its Series C-1 funding round.
  • Advised and acted for spatial data and and mapping platform, NextBillion.ai (and its founders), in its US$21million Series B funding round led by Mirae Asset Venture Investments.
  • Advised Shinhan Venture Investment in conducting due diligence on Speedoc which was raising a $28 million pre-Series B equity round.

Lawyers

Leading Individuals

Sunil Rai

Sunil Rai

Dentons

Sunil Rai is a senior partner in Dentons Rodyk’s Corporate practice group. He is co-head of the Venture Tech & Emerging Growth Companies practice group. He is also co-head of the India practice group which works on outbound and inbound India-related transactions . Sunil concentrates his practice in corporate and transactional matters encompassing investments and exits (buyouts, trade sales), domestic and cross border mergers and acquisitions (M&A), joint ventures, licensing, corporate governance, restructuring of entities, employment law matters including formulating stock option/ share award schemes (ESOP/ ESAS), establishing new businesses and assisting clients in drafting and reviewing contracts across a broad spectrum of various industries, verticals and government sectors. Sunil is particularly experienced in complex investment and venture-backed transactions involving multiple parties, various shareholders and parties across several jurisdictions. He enjoys acting for institutional investors (family offices, venture capital funds and private equity investors) making investments and divestments and start-ups/ early stage entities receiving investments at all stages of a company’s life-cycle - from seed stage to advanced stages such as Series D and beyond. Sunil has a strong interest in investment-related work (involving venture capital and private equity), building up the Israel, Middle East and India - Singapore deal corridor and also enthusiastically assisting in the growth of various SMEs, start-ups and private funds through establishing new ventures, handling legal issues, fund-raising, managing of investments and value creation. Sunil has given several presentations and written articles on business structures, investment term sheets, essentials of contracts, corporate fraud, mergers regime under Competition Act of Singapore, Personal Data Protection Act and amendments to Companies Act of Singapore and the Variable Capital Company regime. He has also been actively involved in pro bono activities for several years including being a grassroots leader and also an active mediator with Community Mediation Centre and Consumer Association of Singapore and mentoring startups at Singapore University of Social Sciences. Sunil also volunteered as a judge at the International Mediation Competitions organised by SIMI in 2019 and 2020.

S Sivanesan

S Sivanesan

Dentons

S Sivanesan is a senior partner and head of Dentons Rodyk's Corporate practice group. He is also Co-Head of the Environment, Natural Resources & Sustainability practice, Venture Tech & Emerging Growth Companies practice and the Singapore-India relationship partner. Sivanesan's primary areas of practice include mergers and acquisitions, corporate reorganisations and restructurings, venture capital, venture technology, investment funds and general corporate commercial matters. He has advised several fund managers, venture capital funds, founders, start-ups and companies on investment deals. Sivanesan's international work includes cross-border and regional transactions, mergers and acquisitions, VC/PE investment deals in South East Asia, India, China, Japan, Europe, Australia and USA. He has worked with local and foreign clients in establishing businesses in Singapore and the region, transactional matters, foreign direct investment, liaising with regional counsel and establishing effective corporate structures for global operations. He is widely regarded as an authority on corporate governance and venture capital. Sivanesan is a past chairman of the Pacific Rim Advisory Council, which is an association of 28 top tier independent law firms with more than 12,000 lawyers in more than 50 key business centres around the world. Sivanesan has addressed regional and international business leaders at conferences and seminars, on topics relating to venture technology, international mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance, venture capital and cross border investments. He is a past Chairman of the Corporate Governance Committee of the Singapore Investors Association of Singapore (SIAS). He is currently the independent Chairman of Liberty Insurance Pte Ltd and Liberty Specialty Markets Singapore Pte Limited, members of the Liberty Mutual Group.

Practice head

The lawyer(s) leading their teams.

S Sivanesan, Sunil Rai

Other key lawyers

Li Chuan Hsu