Novara Advisory Partners Launches as the World’s First AI-Accelerated Global Professional Services Firm, Bringing Together Investment Banking, Law and Strategy

Novara unites three established businesses: a cross-border investment banking practice, a global legal team, and a strategy advisory arm with a regulated Singapore fund

Firm opens simultaneously in London, Singapore, Tokyo and New York, built to end the era of fragmented advice

LONDON, SINGAPORE, TOKYO and NEW YORK — July 8, 2026 — Novara Advisory Partners (“Novara”) today announced its formation as the world’s first AI-accelerated professional services firm integrating investment banking, corporate law and strategy on a single global platform. The firm is led by Global Managing Partner and CEO Marcus Wolter, formerly of Freshfields, and commenced operations on July 4, 2026, with offices in London, Singapore, Tokyo and New York.

Novara unites three previously independently operating businesses. Ignosi Partners, a Singapore-based advisory firm, has come together with Novara Global Capital VCC[1], formerly Angsana Merchant Capital, a Singapore variable capital company, whose mandate includes strategy advisory as well as investments in special situations[2]. They form the basis of Novara Ignosi, led by Takashi Toyokawa, Partner and Head of Investment Banking, and Novara Strategy, led by Robert Meyer, Partner and Head of Strategy Advisory, respectively. Novara Law, established by a team that has been advising on corporate, capital markets and intellectual property matters through a global network of attorneys based across the U.S., Europe and Asia, completes the firm’s three pillars.

Novara was established on a simple foundation: the decisions that matter most to a business rarely fall to a single profession. Strategic decisions and legal issues affecting and shaping a transaction rarely exist in isolation. Yet clients are still expected to engage separate advisors and reconcile conflicting advice themselves, adding cost, delay and unnecessary complexity without bridging the entire gap between the various advice received. Novara closes that gap through three pillars, with the option for clients to engage as one integrated team, for a single mandate anywhere in the world:

• Novara Ignosi: the investment banking arm that provides corporate finance, M&A and deal advisory services;
  

• Novara Law: the legal arm that acts as cross-border legal execution and transaction counsel operating out of London and Tokyo, and out of Singapore and New York in affiliation with local partners; and
  

• Novara Strategy: the strategy advisory arm that also operates as a Singapore-based regulated fund platform for alternative asset management and strategic capital infusions.

“Every generation redefines what a professional services firm should be,” said Wolter. “For decades, the model has centered on the billable hour. We started from a different vantage point and asked ourselves: if you designed a firm today with AI at its core and put clients’ economics ahead of the firm’s, what would it look like? Novara is our answer, combining senior judgment across law, finance and strategy, with technology that removes unnecessary processes and inefficiencies.”

Novara is AI-accelerated by design, developing its own proprietary AI agents in-house that undertake the initial legal work (such as producing routine contract mark-ups and working redlines). Attorneys remain responsible for legal judgment, structuring and strategic advice, allowing senior practitioners to spend their time where their expertise creates the greatest value for clients. The same architecture runs through the investment banking practice, where agents carry the analytical groundwork of diligence and benchmarking so that senior bankers spend their time with clients on negotiation and execution.

Underpinning every relationship is a living record of our clients and their positions and preferences across multiple transactions. With each engagement, Novara’s understanding of each client’s business deepens, enabling us to provide advice that grows ever-sharper and is increasingly tailored to each client’s specific needs and preferences the longer the relationship runs. The result is institutional-grade work from a senior core, at a cost competitive with firms several times Novara’s size, and fees structured around outcomes instead of hours.

“Our clients operate in industries that are being fundamentally transformed by technology in a fast-evolving world,” said Toyokawa, formerly of PwC and the SoftBank Group’s LY Corporation. “The advice they receive hasn’t kept pace. It arrives fragmented across firms and buried in process, so we built Novara around clients’ needs instead. Our proprietary platform clears the routine away, so our dealmakers can give their full attention to what counts: reading the market, structuring the deal and standing beside our clients when it matters most. Clients get one global team, with deep knowledge of their industries, moving at the pace their world now changes.”

The third pillar takes the firm’s advice beyond the transaction. “Much of what determines a deal’s value happens before it commences and after it closes, whether it’s the market you enter, the operating model or where the capital goes,” said Meyer, co-founder of SGX-listed Halcyon Agri. “Novara Strategy helps clients make exactly those decisions. Further, through our regulated fund platform, we have the option to invest alongside clients where appropriate. It enables us to provide advice with conviction behind it.”

Novara advises founders, boards, investors and institutions, with particular depth in sectors undergoing rapid transformation, including technology and digital infrastructure, energy and renewables, life sciences and health, financial services and digital assets, consumer and food, and defense and security.

[1] Novara Global Capital VCC is a regulated Singapore vehicle that sits within Novara Strategy.

[2] Further information on the Ignosi Partners and Angsana Merchant Capital transactions is set out in a separate release issued today titled: Novara Advisory Partners Acquires Ignosi Partners and Angsana Merchant Capital

About Novara Advisory Partners

Novara Advisory Partners is an AI-accelerated global professional services partnership built on three pillars: Novara Ignosi (investment banking), Novara Law (cross-border legal execution and transaction counsel) and Novara Strategy (strategy advisory and a regulated fund platform for alternative asset management). The firm commenced operations on July 4, 2026, with offices in London, Singapore, Tokyo and New York. Collectively, the firm’s three businesses have advised on landmark cross-border transactions totaling more than US$100 billion and have built and exited companies generating more than US$2 billion in revenues. Find more details at novara.partners and novara-law.com.

Media Contact

The Novara Team at team@novara-law.com