Legl, the law firm workflow and practice management platform started by Julia Salasky, who previously built A2J platform CrowdJustice, has raised $7m (£5m) – after only starting the company around 18 months ago.
The series A round saw a range of investors take part, including Al Giles, the UK-based ex-CRO of Axiom. Other investors are: Octopus Ventures – which led, with participation from existing investors Backed, Samaipata and First Round Capital, and also Carlos Gonzalez-Cadenas, the ex-CPO and COO of GoCardless.
UK-based Salasky told Artificial Lawyer that it had been ‘a full-time task’ getting to this point, taking around two to three months to put the funding together.
She noted that because of her work with CrowdJustice, which crowdsources money for legal cases – and which is still running – there was already a great team of people in place.
Also, no doubt, investors could see that the founder and CEO of Legl was someone who had already built a very successful venture, albeit in the A2J space. As they say, investors are putting their faith in the founders as much as they are in the product.
This site has seen plenty of legal tech startups that have been going for several years before reaching this level of investment, so this is all the more noteworthy.
‘We’ll be using the money to enrich the product and we have an exciting vision of where the tech can go to add more value to law firm clients. We will provide better workflows, and help them to surface data so lawyers can understand their clients better,’ Salasky told Artificial Lawyer.
There would also be more hires into engineering and product development, as well as increasing the company’s international reach. At present they have about 100 clients, with about a dozen in the UK 200.
‘We think we can do something profound to improve how law works as a business,’ Salasky concluded.
The move is interesting in several ways. First, it’s an example of a founder who started in A2J and then launched a commercial business. We have seen this also with Dorna Moini and Documate.
Second, the speed at which Legl has gone to a $7m round suggests investors see a major opportunity for workflow and practice management tools, especially perhaps across a wider segment of the market – as at present much of Legl’s client base is among smaller to medium-size law firms.
Zoe Chambers, early stage investor at Octopus Ventures, said of the investment: ‘It’s rare to find a founder and team with such insider knowledge to tackle a big industry that has started to adopt technology quickly. Covid has accelerated the move to digital in the legal industry, and Julia and team, with deep expertise across legal, SaaS and fintech, are in prime position to win the market.’
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