In an unusual combination, Nexl, which assists lawyers with their CRM needs, has bought Jade, a tool that helps legal tech companies to sell to lawyers. The software will be leveraged by Nexl to boost its own sales efforts.
It’s quite a small deal, but an interesting one. Jade was created by US-based Gillian Fishman in 2020 and it offers the ability to make tailored demos of legal tech products, as well as build ‘in-app micro-guides’ to improve the onboarding of purchased software.
Meanwhile, Nexl started in Australia and now has bases in the UK and US. Its goal is to help lawyers improve their CRM capabilities without having to manually add data into the system.
As is well-known, the main challenge with CRM is that many lawyers just don’t want to spare the time – or can’t spare the time – to fill in details of their meetings and calls into a CRM database. And, even when they do, the data is not always useful. Nexl is trying to change this.
But, back to the deal, which one could see in some ways as an acquihire.
Fishman (pictured below) commented: ‘I’m absolutely thrilled to be joining the team at Nexl. The inspiration for Jade actually came from the frustration I experienced as a lawyer trying to learn a new CRM platform – bringing Jade’s technology to a company in the same space that is so clearly committed to Customer Success feels like the perfect beginning to the next chapter.’
Phil Thurner, CEO/Founder of NEXL, added: ‘We could not be more excited. With the acquisition of Jade and Gillian joining the team, our Nexl customer base will now see an even more customised, industry-specific on-boarding product experience into the Nexl products, leading to faster time-to-value and reduced training, all built and led by a visionary Legal Tech product success leader in Gillian Fishman.’
Nexl added that the move comes at a time of rapid growth and that they have ‘signed-up over 70 law firms’ and expanded internationally in the last three Quarters.
Is this a big deal? Clearly this is not the biggest ever deal, but the combination of a legal tech sales tool with a CRM system for lawyers is a creative move. Having an entrepreneurial founder in the shape of Fishman will no doubt be a boost to Nexl, while the application that she has developed can now be deployed to drive sales of Nexl.