It is an undeniable fact that the number of women-led organizations are lesser than that of men. Breaking this bias, women are coming out of their comfort zones to achieve their entrepreneurial dreams and succeed in their ventures. They are on the rising graph despite a world of challenges confronting them, making a fair game of equality in the world of business. Among such ambitious and avid women, we have Anisha Patnaik, a lawyer, steward of governance, and success maker of LexStart - a group of entities that focus on providing legal and compliance support to the early stage ecosystem.

Anisha has rich experience in corporate commercial, M&As, Joint Ventures, and has been focusing on the startup ecosystem in the past few years. She regularly advises entrepreneurs, startups, investors, incubators, and accelerators on matters relating to structuring entities, co-founders and shareholders agreements, investment, structuring stock incentives, etc. Women Entrepreneur India engages in an exclusive interview with Anisha to further explore the endeavors in her journey.

Enumerate on your educational and entrepreneurial journey. What drove you to entrench LexStart?

College was just the beginning where I started turning good habits into a lifestyle consciously. The Compounding Effect of Efforts resulted in LLB from Symbiosis Society’s Law College and ranking 9th in Pune University. I further went on to explore the legal field in every role possible, as a corporate lawyer, an in-house counsel, and an entrepreneur. Over years, it turned out as a fine assortment of hats to have worn!

My 16-year long experience in corporate commercial law started as an M&A lawyer. But my zeal to explore diverse frontiers of law led me to new paths. I have been a General Counsel for a development sector fund, set up a cleantech accelerator, made a partner at a reputed law firm, started a legal-tech startup, and have been running my start-up advisory firm successfully for the past 5 years. I worked with notable organizations such as Thakker and Thakker and K Law. My practice made it evident that the otherwise narrow legal advice by law firms would increase manifold in value to entrepreneurs if I could seamlessly integrate my advice to their compliances and agreements. I bridged this gap by setting up LexStart.

“Anisha lives by the philosophy of sharing knowledge and empowering people, be it peers, colleagues, or students. She mentors several top startup incubators and accelerators in the country, including ciie at iim-a and forge accelerator”

Tell us about LexStart along with the services that you offer.

LexStart provides legal and compliance services and products to the early-stage startup ecosystems. Our idea is to be a one-stop-shop for the early-stage startup ecosystem. Here, we focus on satisfying any-and-all needs of the stakeholders in the earlystage startup ecosystem – entrepreneurs, investors, incubators.

The firm specializes in hand-holding startups right from the process of incorporating (startingup) to managing all their compliances, taking care of their trademarks, due diligence, commercial contracts, fundraising documentation, etc.

We are was one of the first companies in the country to offer automated ESOP services. Starting Flexi-work models, adopting convertible note structures, and launching LexStart as India’s first P2P application are some of my key achievements as a founder.

How do you ensure to keep up this quality in your services and inspire your clients to do business with you?

Right to legal representation is afforded when, Quality and Affordability confluence. LexStart believes in driven service which accounts for the same. We strive to offer services at competitive prices without compromising on quality.

Our unique structure supports the early-stage ecosystem with all their legal and compliance requirements. Unlike, most law firms focusing and terminating relationships after fundraising transactions. If pain points are unknown and not calculated upon, which is solved by our General Health Check-Up Service for the company, which produces a formal report of the prognosis after diagnosis of the company’s Legal, Compliance, Tax & Financial Health.

Entrepreneurs intend to be less concerned with paperwork and filing documents. This is where LexStart steps in and asks its clients to leave all the legal worries and compliance concerns on their shoulders while they go on elevating their business. By calling ourselves “in-house counsel and compliance manager”, LexStart aims to handhold client’s through their concerns while using technology to increase efficiency and transparency.

Tell us about your hobbies. How do you use the leisure time to update yourself with the latest technologies and trends in the Legal service space of India?

Now that I think about Hobbies, it's the adult way of dealing with time to achieve personal mental and physical stability. I play the piano; over the weekends, I am a bibliophile (I like to finish one book every weekend) and I love knitting. Yes! You heard it right. Knitting is one of the best stress busters so you should Sue to Sew and at the end of it, I have a handmade gift for a loved one!

The key to success is to always experiment with change. For me and LexStart as an organization, R & D was pivotal. Today technology solves for a seamless experience, for both clients and employees of the organization. Witness to that, was the pandemic, transitioning to the WFH model, while still safeguarding employment without lowering pay, quality, or productivity.

Anisha Patnaik, Co-Founder, Lexstart Consultancy

Roadmap Of Lexstart

It is one of the leading startup advisory law firms in the country today. It is planning to add other service verticals, such as accounting and finance. Anisha’s goal is to make LexStart as the leading One-Stop Startup Advisory Firm in all verticals and also expand to other jurisdictions.

Highlights

• Anisha intends to motivate women to go beyond societal stereotypes and stay focused on what they wish to achieve. As a strong champion of the female cause, 70 percent of her employees are women.

• LexStart has advocated ‘Flexi working hours’ for women since its inception.

• LexStart was the Exclusive Legal Partner to Maharashtra Startup Week