Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas Delhi-based partner Sourav Kanti De Biswas has joined gazillion-dollar-valued hotel chain Oyo as vice president legal last month.

He will be focusing on the in-house legal domestic and international transactions vertical at the fast-growing unicorn, which has vowed to become the world’s largest hotel chain by 2023, and boasts 850,000 budget rooms.

He is reporting to general counsel (GC) Rakesh Prusti, who had joined in 2018 from Max Healthcare.

Oyo has been a close client of AZB & Partners’, according to our deals database in 2018, having instructed the firm on a mammoth $600m fundraise last year, as well as its purchase of Weddingz, a banquets company, and of co-working space Innov8.

Update 21 August 2019: IndusLaw has also advised Oyo since 2014, including on its early 2019 fundraising round of $100m each from Asian ride sharing companies Grab and Didi, and $400m from Softbank.

Biswas is a 2005 NUJS Kolkata graduate, who had worked in-house at Reliance Communications and Avaya, before joining erstwhile Amarchand Mangaldas in Delhi in 2008.

He was made partner at its successor firm Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas (SAM) in 2015.

In November 2018, he joined Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas after four months of notice, as part of the move of SAM Delhi partner Akila Agrawal.

Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas managing partner Cyril Shroff commented: “We wish him well.”

We have reached out to Biswas for comment.