JSA acted as legal advisor to Avaana Sustainability Fund in relation to its investment in Bacalt BioSciences Private Limited (Bacalt).
Founded in 2023 by Shruti Kutmutia and Pranav Nair, the Bangalore-based start-up develops sustainable alternatives to conventional specialty ingredients by producing biopolymers from agro-industrial waste through advanced bio-manufacturing processes.
The funding round, which also saw participation from Lubrizol Advanced Materials Europe BV (a subsidiary of the global specialty chemicals provider Lubrizol), raised primary capital infusion, which Bacalt intends to deploy to scale its R&D processes, establish pilot production facilities, expand its team, and develop go-to-market strategies for international expansion.
As part of the transaction, JSA provided end-to-end legal support, including conducting due diligence on Bacalt, drafting, negotiating and finalizing transaction documents, and assisting with closing actions.
The transaction was led by Siddharth Mody as the Lead Partner. He was supported by Anurag Shrivastav, Partner, Shefalika Shekhawat, Associate, Gavin Perereia, Associate and Prakhar Jain, Associate.
Anurag is part of the Corporate practice group of JSA, with more than 12 years of post-qualification experience. He specializes in M&A, private equity transactions and general corporate advisory.