Startup, Venture Capital & M&A Lawyer

Raj Barot

Raj Barot is a cross-border corporate lawyer and former tech operator working across the San Francisco Bay Area and Singapore, with more than 20 years of experience in the US and Asia. He advises founders, investors and growth-stage companies on venture capital financings, M&A and technology transactions, particularly on deals connecting Silicon Valley and Asia. He also advises on cross-border flips and holding structures, including Delaware flips for non-US startups. Having built and scaled businesses himself from the ground up, Raj understands the commercial pressures behind fundraising, expansion and exits. He gives practical advice focused on solutions, not obstacles, that accelerates deals toward closing.

Before founding Agile Counsel, Raj was general counsel to technology companies in AI, SaaS, payments, e-commerce, logistics and gaming. He managed the full legal function, often as sole counsel, advising on financings, M&A, joint ventures, IP and technology licensing, governance and equity plans. At DOCOMO Digital, he negotiated mobile payment agreements with major streaming and app-store platforms in Asia, Australia and New Zealand. For an ASX-listed logistics platform, he led the legal and compliance work behind its expansion from Australia into five Southeast Asian markets. For a venture capital fund, he advised on portfolio investments in India and Singapore. At e-commerce platform Luxola, he ran its legal function across 11 markets including India and the UAE and led it through its acquisition by LVMH.

Raj began his career as an operator, building and leading the India operations of a San Francisco legal tech company, where he managed a team of more than 100 engineers, linguists and lawyers that developed AI tools to automate legal review for complex US litigation and investigations.

Raj is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at INSEAD, where he has mentored AI founders through the AI Venture Lab, and is a mentor with the Google for Startups Accelerator.