LexisNexis Invites New Legal Tech Start-ups to Join Accelerator

LexisNexis today announced a call for a new round of legal tech start-ups to join its second legal accelerator programme. The new programme begins on September 15, 2017 and follows an earlier programme that included innovative start-ups such as TagDox and Ping.

The legal publishing and tech giant said that if selected, start-ups will receive hands-on mentoring, access to cutting-edge technologies and, perhaps most importantly for any AI companies: data.

They will also have the use of a workspace in Menlo Park, California (pictured above) within the offices of Lex Machina, the AI-driven litigation analysis company that joined LexisNexis.

The accelerator programme was first conceived as a vehicle to give start-ups ‘a leg up’ in the rapidly expanding legal tech industry, and was launched in April 2017.

Once again, the programme will be led by Lex Machina CEO Josh Becker and LexisNexis’ Chief Product Officer, Jamie Buckley, Vice President of US Product Management, Jeff Pfeifer (see recent interview with Jeff here about LexisNexis’ plans for AI), Chief Technology Officer, Jeff Reihl, and Lex Machina Chief Evangelist, Owen Byrd.

Topics covered in the curriculum include:

  • technology and product development;
  • running an agile product development organization;
  • building a strong company culture;
  • selling to legal departments and law firms;
  • leveraging legal data;
  • and best practices in customer success, marketing and fundraising.

The inaugural five accelerator participants – Visabot, TagDox, Separate.us, Ping, and JuriLytics – were selected from a list of 40+ legal startups.

Giving feedback on their experience some of the start-ups that went through the first programme said the following:

‘The accelerator did exactly what the term says: it accelerated our efforts towards finding a product-market fit. LexisNexis was a true collaborator with us during the entire process. Best of all, the programme gave us access to the top minds in this area from which we will be able to launch new partnerships and gain access to resources we would not have gotten otherwise,’ said Amit Lakhani, Co-founder and President, JuriLytics.

While, Eli Luzac, CEO, TagDox added: ‘The LexisNexis accelerator programme was unique because of their deep knowledge of the law. Through the program, we were able to learn new ways to market specifically to the legal industry. It was also very helpful to us to learn best practices from people with a wealth of experience in sales and other disciplines.’

Josh Becker, CEO of Lex Machina, concluded: ‘I’m pleased to say the programme has exceeded expectations so far, and we’re excited to have the opportunity to select a new group of participants in the near future. We look forward to watching these dynamic organisations grow, prosper and make important contributions to the legal industry in the months and years to come.’

It is not yet known whether LexisNexis is planning on investing in, or acquiring, any of the start-ups that joined the accelerator.

>>> If you would like to know more about joining the programme, interested companies should email a ‘one pager’ to aoh@lexmachina.com