Danish legal tech startup Pandektes has secured €2.9m in seed funding for their genAI research platform that helps to ‘navigate legislation, find case law, make legal queries, get answers, and build knowledge-bases’. (Plus, see co-founder interview below.)
The startup said that it hopes to ‘dismantle jurisdictional barriers in Europe and build an enormous legal database with millions of legal sources from across the EU’.
Pandektes was founded in 2023 by Casper Laursen and Søren Brokær, who said that with genAI they’ve been able to achieve their goals in relation to search that were not possible before. The cash came from Danish venture capital firm People Ventures, German fund Interface Capital, and a group of prominent Nordic business angels.
It’s one of a growing number of Scandinavian legal tech companies gaining market attention, often with a strong basis in genAI, which includes the likes of Leya, Pocketlaw, Newcode AI, and Juristic, among others.
Co-founder Laursen commented: ‘Legal professionals currently have access to only a small fraction of the legal resources they need. In Denmark, for example, lawyers can access less than half a percent of all court rulings each year.
‘Our AI tool changes that by making more of these rulings available, searchable, and easy to find. This will enhance the rule of law, promote greater transparency in legal practice, and significantly boost efficiency in the industry. What used to take days of legal research, we can now accomplish in seconds. That’s a true revolution.’
‘Our competitive advantage is that we can cover an international market which means that a French or a German ruling can be used as a source in a Polish court case. Without Pandektes that would be impossible because you would have to search in foreign databases in languages that you wouldn’t understand. We are going to build the largest legal database in Europe,’ he added.
Artificial Lawyer also asked him:
– What does this funding mean for you personally?
‘This is a big personal milestone in every way. When Søren and I founded the company we knew that there was a big business opportunity, but quickly we realised that there was also a possibility for us to build something that influence how law is accessed, understood, and how justice is reached. That’s one of the guiding lights we’ve always been looking at as something that’s insanely personally meaningful to both of us. In our personality tests that we had to undergo as part of our due diligence we also both scored really high on a strong sense of justice.
‘Practically building a company like this means sacrificing a lot of things in life. Time with your closest ones, friends’ birthdays, and family events that you miss. We’ve put all our energy and focus into building this, so gaining support and additional capital to pursue what matters to us, is a great milestone. It’s also incredibly important to us, that we have the possibilities to expand our team while taking really great care of building a work environment that everybody thrives in.’
– The legal tech world in Scandinavia is vibrant now, why is so much happening there?
‘I think we have a very open-minded legal sector in Scandinavia that takes a genuine interest in legal innovation and is willing to collaborate about developing useful solutions. Generally, I just think there are a lot of great founders across Scandinavia and that we’re generally punching above our weight in terms of product quality, not just in legal but across verticals.
‘The company said that it has gained over 100 customers in Europe – among them legal councils, public institutions and large law firms in Germany and Denmark. With the new investment, their vision is to build a platform that covers the entire EU, which will make Pandektes the first to build a database of rulings across all EU jurisdictions, they added. ‘
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Magnus Sagsted, principal and CFO in People Ventures, concluded: ‘This is a perfect example of how artificial intelligence is going to strengthen the legal industry.
‘Pandektes has had an impressive growth rate, they’ve built a comprehensive product in a very short time and they are working on a market with little competition that screams for innovation. Most important of all, they’ve built a product that they’re customers are happy about in a market that has been monopoly-driven for years.’
As noted, great to see more success stories coming out of Europe and in particular Scandinavia. Skål!