One Firm, Three Disciplines, No Handoffs

Singapore · London · Tokyo · New York

Today, Novara Advisory Partners opens its doors in Singapore, London, Tokyo and New York as a fully integrated global strategic advisory firm: investment banking, strategy advisory and legal counsel under one roof, with AI built into the architecture rather than bolted on top of it.

Most clients know the alternative all too well. A deal needs a banker to run the process, a strategist to stress-test the thesis, and a lawyer to structure and close it- three firms, three engagement letters, three versions of the same due diligence, and a client left to reconcile it all. Novara was built to remove that seam.

Here’s a closer look at each discipline and the thread of AI running through all three.

Legal

Novara Law is a senior-led corporate practice built around cross-border M&A, private equity and venture capital financing, intellectual property, and public listings. Services extend into fund formation, structured finance and lending, and regulatory work spanning antitrust, CFIUS, data and privacy, and employment.

Our legal team is led by industry experts Marcus Wolter, recognized by Legal 500 as "Always Available" with $100bn+ in transactions advised, and Lukas Kratochvil, a Magic Circle-trained partner ranked by Legal 500 Asia Pacific. What distinguishes us from a traditional firm is structural: every matter gets direct senior-partner involvement rather than being staffed down through layers of associates.

Furthermore, pricing is built around the deal rather than the billable hour: fixed fees, phased fees, capped fees, or risk-sharing structures where Novara’s economics track the outcome. Rather than positioning itself as a full-service shop, the firm operates on a “best-suited partner” model, drawing on a vetted network of specialist firms across 60+ jurisdictions and consolidating their advice into a single, commercially focused recommendation.

Investment Banking

Novara Partners provides integrated investment banking across the full transaction lifecycle - M&A and joint ventures, growth equity and venture capital, capital raising and securities work, and post-merger integration - pairing deep sector expertise with a highly localized approach to sourcing, structuring and closing deals.

The practice is led by Takashi Toyokawa, whose prior mandates include running global M&A on the USD 30 billion LY Corporation/Yahoo Japan merger. Its distinguishing feature is agentic AI layered across every phase of a deal: AI-driven target screening and market mapping at origination, probabilistic financial modelling during evaluation, and real-time execution support that the firm says cuts standard due diligence time by 55%. Every AI-generated output is reviewed by a senior banker before it reaches a client, and fee structures are designed so Novara’s economics move with the deal’s outcome, not just its billable hours.

Strategy Advisory

Novara’s strategy practice covers market entry and competitive positioning, business model and organizational design, capital allocation, and post-merger integration, built on the idea that strategy work should be judged by results rather than the quality of a deck. It’s led by Robert Meyer, who spent more than 25 years building and exiting platforms, including Halcyon Agri, which he co-founded and took public on the SGX before growing it into one of the world’s largest natural rubber companies. The practice is structured to stay involved through execution rather than handing off a set of recommendations. AI-assisted intelligence speeds the analytical groundwork (market mapping, scenario modelling, competitive analysis), while a separate quantitative due diligence function, led by Prof. Dr. Sven Hoeppner, is designed to catch the cognitive biases (confirmation bias, halo effects, groupthink, etc) that distort decision-making in traditional deal diligence. Where conviction is high, the practice can back its own advice with capital through Novara Global Capital, the firm’s MAS-regulated Singapore fund platform.

AI-accelerated, human-verified

As Global Managing Partner Marcus Wolter puts it, “AI is built into Novara’s architecture, not replacing our experienced professionals, but enabling them to deliver comprehensive, results-driven advice faster than ever before.” That’s what runs through all three disciplines: AI handles the repeatable, data-heavy work (document review, market mapping, financial modelling, bias-checking, etc) while a regulated, accountable professional reviews and signs off on what it produces. The technology changes how fast the work happens; it doesn’t change who’s responsible for it.

Novara Advisory Partners is live today in Singapore, London, Tokyo and New York.