Aarthi Belani
Biography
Aarthi Belani is a partner in Baker McKenzie’s Palo Alto office. Aarthi’s practice focuses on M&A and venture deals in the tech and life sciences arena. She represents strategic acquirers, especially in cross-border deals, emerging growth technology companies, venture capital funds, and corporate venture capital. She has also represented the sell-side and advised on health care, financial services, and impact investment deals.
Prior to joining Baker McKenzie, Aarthi was a partner in the M&A practice of a top-tier international law firm. Prior to that, she was on the in-house legal team covering strategic M&A at Credit Suisse in New York, where she was also a member of the Sustainability Network, a Credit Suisse OneBank (cross-divisional) initiative to develop impact investment products. At the start of her career, Aarthi was an associate in the New York office of another top-tier international law firm for five years, where she worked on complex strategic M&A and innovative development finance.
She is a mentor for the Unreasonable Group (a program for entrepreneurs); a Leadership Committee member of How Women Lead, which is part of the campaign to increase the representation of women on corporate boards; and a director of Bidoun, a not-for-profit publishing, curatorial, and educational initiative that prints a quarterly magazine showcasing art and culture from the Middle East.
Practice Focus
Representative Legal Matters
Prior to joining the Firm, Aarthi handled the following matters:
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Advised AbbVie Inc. in its acquisition of Seattle-based Mavupharma, a privately held biopharmaceutical company focused on novel approaches to target the STING (STimulator of INterferon Genes) pathway for the treatment of cancer.
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Represented Uniphore Technologies Inc., a conversational AI platform providing automation, analytics, assistant and security services, in its issuance of Series D Preferred Stock, which was led by Sorenson Capital Partners.
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Advised JTC PLC in the acquisition of NES Financial, a technology-enabled provider of specialist fund administration and treasury services recognized on the San Francisco Business Times top Bay Area fintech list, for up to USD 116 million.
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Represented Educational Testing Service, the world's largest private nonprofit educational testing and assessment organization, in its participation in a bridge financing of MPOWER Financing, a Public Benefit Corporation whose stated mission is to reduce the financial barriers to international education.
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Represented Uniphore Technologies Inc., an early leader in Conversational Service Automation (CSA), in its acquisition of Emotion Research Labs, S.L., a leading software developer that uses AI and machine learning, to identify emotion and engagement levels in real-time over video-based interactions.
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Advised Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Co., Ltd. ("Sumitomo") in an acquisition of late stage biopharma companies and formation of alliance with Roivant Sciences Ltd.
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Represented Treau, Inc., a seed-stage hardware startup based in San Francisco, California making home heaters and air conditioners that are better for the environment, easier to install, and more pleasant to use, in connection with its Series Seed equity financing.
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Advised Five9, Inc., the leading provider of the intelligent cloud contact center, in its acquisition of Whendu’s iPaaS platform, which is designed for the specific needs of the contact center to help accelerate migration to the cloud by making it easier for enterprises to integrate with their existing environment and carry forward customized business processes.
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Advised Verimatrix f/k/a Inside Secure in its all cash acquisition of Verimatrix, Inc. for up to approximately USD 145 million in cash (including a potential earn-out).
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Advised SAP in its USD 8 billion acquisition of Qualtrics International Inc., the global pioneer in the experience management software category.
Professional Honors
- "Women Leaders in Tech Law, Corporate/Transactions Honorees", The Recorder and Law.com's California Legal Awards, 2025
- "40 Under 40" honoree, Silicon Valley Business Journal, 2018
Professional Associations and Memberships
- How Women Lead - Leadership Committee
- Unreasonable Group - Mentor
Corporate Responsibility
- Active in campaign to diversify corporate Board governance and in mentoring cleantech emerging growth companies.
Admissions
- California~United States (2014)
- New York~United States (2005)
Education
- NYU School of Law Junior Fellowship, Institute for International Law and Justice (LLM) (2005)
- NYU School of Law (JD, cum laude) (2004)
- Stanford University (BA, with honors) (2001)