- Funding for legal tech surpassed $1 billion in 2021.
- VC firms, private equity, and even traditional law players are pouring money in.
- Check out these 18 pitch decks for examples of how legal-tech startup founders sold their vision.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
As law firms and their clients seek to digitize and streamline work, VCs have been opening their wallets to the growing legal-tech space. The total value of deals in the global legal-tech market through the end of the third quarter of 2021 clocked in at $1.47 billion — far surpassing the $607 million figure from all of 2020, according to data from PitchBook.
PE firms invested upwards of a record-breaking $7 billion in legal tech and outsourced legal services in 2021, according to estimates by JEGI. The figure is likely to be larger, since many PE firms don't disclose their deal numbers.
Here's a look at our legal-tech pitch deck collection.
Paladin
Paladin, which pitches itself as an innovator in the emerging field of "justice tech," has a pro bono management platform that it hopes will revolutionize how law firms and corporate legal departments engage with legal-services groups.
The company offers free versions of its tools to legal-services companies. The platform is meant to streamline communications between the pro bono departments of law firms or corporate legal departments and the outside groups looking for those services, according to co-founder Kristen Sonday.
Its Series A round was led by World Within, an impact fund based in Atlanta, with other investors including Mark Cuban and Hyde Park Ventures. Investors also include Vamos Ventures, C2 Ventures, and Sorenson Institute.
See the 14-slide pitch deck that helped the pro bono tech startup Paladin score an $8 million Series A
Della
Contract review startup Della announced in March that it raised a $2.5 million seed round, led by Pragmatech Ventures.
Founded in 2018, the London-based startup uses artificial intelligence to help lawyers review contracts faster. The startup wants to enable businesses to become less reliant on law firms for low-value tasks, and founder Christopher Frerebeau sees a large demand for those services.
Legal-tech startup Della used this 14-page pitch deck to raise $2.5 million in seed funding
Proof Technology
Proof Technology, a service of process and e-discovery platform, announced in March 2022 that it had raised $7 million in Series A funding. Blue Heron Capital and the LegalTech Fund led the round.
In 2017, longtime trial lawyer Eric Voogt founded Proof because he grew frustrated with an inability to provide legal services to the 80% of Americans who can't afford them.
The legal-tech startup streamlines the first stages of the litigation process, helping law firms deliver complaints and subpoenas to parties of a lawsuit more quickly and cheaply.
Here's the 14-page pitch deck that legal-tech startup Proof Technology used to raise a $7 million Series A
New Era ADR
New Era ADR, an alternative dispute-resolution platform, raised $4.6 million in seed funding led by NextView Ventures.
New Era helps companies handle large legal disputes virtually, from filing a case to uploading documents during discovery. The company hopes to drive efficiency and predictability by providing set timelines and fixed fees, which are split among the parties. An expedited arbitration of 60 days costs $10,000, and a standard arbitration of 100 days costs $35,000.
See the 13-page pitch deck legal-disputes startup New Era ADR used to nab $4.6 million in seed funding
Justpoint
Justpoint, a legal-tech startup that matches personal injury victims with lawyers, raised an additional $6.9 million in a seed extension round led by Divergent Capital and Charge Ventures.
Founded in 2018, Justpoint uses artificial intelligence to help personal injury claimants find the best lawyers suited to their case.
Founder Victor Bornstein came up with the idea after struggling to consistently find high-quality lawyers for his family, who he said have been victims of human rights violations like political persecution not once, but five times.
Here's the 15-page pitch deck that landed personal injury lawyer startup Justpoint an extra $6.9 million in seed funding
Time by Ping
Legal-tech startup Time by Ping announced in March 2022 that it raised $36.5 million for its Series B.
Ryan Alshak, an attorney, and Kourosh Zamani, a business executive, founded the company in 2016 as a way to help lawyers and other professionals automate the cumbersome timekeeping process.
Time by Ping integrates with commonly used programs like Microsoft Suite, email, Slack, and internet browsers to track how much lawyers spend on each task. It then automatically creates time entries using natural language processing and machine learning, and presents that data in a dashboard.
Here's the 22-page pitch deck that legal timekeeping startup Time by Ping used to nab a $36.5 million Series B
Legal.io
Legal.io, a hiring marketplace for legal talent, announced in March it raised a $11.6 million Series A round led by Tiger Global.
Founded in 2015 by a former DLA Piper lawyer, Legal.io helps large enterprise companies like Zoom, Medallia, and Nextdoor hire lawyers and other legal professionals. It has over 40 enterprise customers, and 70% of those are publicly listed companies with legal departments, according to Pieter Gunst, the startup's founder and CEO.
Legal.io was founded on the thesis that as online networks like LinkedIn become more mature, there was a greater need for industry-specific hiring platforms. The startup is geared toward the needs of the legal industry, especially as lawyers are increasingly eyeing nontraditional paths away from Big Law.
Here's the 17-page pitch deck legal-job marketplace Legal.io used to impress Tiger Global and raise an $11.6 million Series A
PainWorth
PainWorth, a personal injury claim tool, raised a $1.7 million ($2.1 CAD) seed round in December 2021.
Founded in 2019, the Canadian startup combs through cases and other data to help personal injury victims calculate how much their claims are worth.
PainWorth's cofounder Mike Zouhri came up with the idea after being hit by a drunk driver in early 2019. Growing frustrated by the lack of clarity from personal injury lawyers, many of whom refuse to give any useful information until a prospective client signs a contract that binds them to a hefty fee, Zouhri decided to make his own tool to help figure out the value of his claim.
Check out the 13-page pitch deck that legal-tech startup PainWorth used to nab $1.7 million for its seed round
Lawtrades
Lawtrades, an online hiring marketplace for freelance legal work, raked in $6 million for its Series A in December 2021.
In 2016, Raad Ahmed and Ashish Walia, both former lawyers, created an easy, all-in-one app for companies to hire legal talent.
A growing number of white-collar professionals have been leaving their companies in droves in search of better work-life balance, flexibility, and personal fulfillment. Lawtrades has more than 1,000 freelance lawyers, paralegals, and other legal specialists on its network, Ahmed said.
Companies can use Lawtrades' matchmaking algorithm to find legal talent for specific engagements, and can use built-in calendar, video conference, and time-tracking features to manage the project from start to finish. Hiring lawyers through Lawtrades is also much cheaper than hiring one from a Big Law firm. Lawtrades lawyers cost companies around $150 to $250 an hour, depending on the practice area.
Here's the futuristic 24-page pitch deck that landed legal freelancing app Lawtrades a $6-million Series A
CourtCorrect
CourtCorrect, which helps individuals and businesses submit and manage civil cases, snapped up $2.95 million (£2.2 million) in seed round funding in November 2021.
Founded in 2019 in London, the legal-tech startup brings together claimants, defendants, lawyers, and judges into a single platform, where they can bring cases and reach resolutions without having to go to court.
Investors included RLC Ventures, Ascension Ventures (UK), and The Twenty Minute VC. Visionaries Club and other angel investors also participated in the round.
See the 12-page pitch deck that landed legal-tech startup CourtCorrect nearly $3 million in seed funding
Malbek
Malbek, which helps companies' legal, sales, and finance teams manage and analyze their contracts, announced in September 2021 that it raised $15.3 million for its Series A.
Contract lifecycle management, or CLM, has been red-hot in the legal-tech space. Of the $1.4 billion invested in legal-tech during the first half of 2021, almost a quarter was snapped up by six contract companies, including Ironclad, Contractbook, and Icertis. SoftBank recently led the $115 million Series C for ContractPodAi, another CLM company.
Founded in 2017, Malbek helps these departments through the entire contracting process, from drafting contracts with optimal terms through tracking contractual obligations after they're signed.
The Series A was led by Atlanta-based Noro-Moseley Partners, which invests in early-growth tech and healthcare companies. TDF Ventures and Osage Venture Partners also participated in the round.
This 11-page pitch deck scored a contract-management startup $15.3 million for its Series A
ContractPodAi
A startup looking to streamline how companies handle contracts nabbed an investment from one of the world's most high-profile investors in a nod to the rising interest in legal tech.
ContractPodAi, which helps in-house legal teams automate and manage their contracts, raised a $115 million Series C in late September 2021 led by SoftBank. The round quintupled ContractPodAi's valuation since its last funding round in 2019, though the company declined to disclose specific valuation numbers.
The investment came from SoftBank's Vision Fund 2. Its predecessor, the original $100 billion megafund Vision Fund, has invested in dozens of household names including WeWork, Uber, and DoorDash. While some of the fund's bets were wildly successful, others fell short of expectations.
ContractPodAi is the first legal-tech investment by either of SoftBank's Vision Funds.
Here's the 7-page pitch deck that legal-tech startup ContractPodAi used to convince SoftBank's Masa Son to lead its $115 million Series C
Jus Mundi
Jus Mundi, an AI-powered legal search engine for international law and arbitration, snapped up $10 million for its Series A in September 2021.
In 2019, Jean-Rémi de Maistre, a former lawyer at the International Court of Justice, co-launched the company after realizing how hard it was to conduct research for cross-border legal cases.
Paris-based Jus Mundi raised a €1 million ($1.17 USD) seed round in March 2020, spurring a fivefold growth in annual recurring revenue over the span of 2020, according to the company. Its most recent $10 million Series A was led by C4 Ventures, a European VC firm founded by Pascal Cagni, a former head of Apple Europe. The VC firm has also invested in hot-ticket companies like Foursquare, Nest, and Via.
Here's the 16-page pitch deck that landed legal research company Jus Mundi a $10 million Series A
LawVu
LawVu, an end-to-end software platform for in-house legal teams, snapped up a $17 million Series A in August 2021.
Founded in 2015, the New Zealand-based startup enables companies' in-house lawyers to manage contracts, documents, billing, and more on one platform.
The funding round was led by the private-equity firm Insight Partners, which has invested in other legal-tech companies like DocuSign, Kira Systems, and ContractPodAI, as well as big-ticket businesses like Twitter, Shopify, and Hello Fresh. AirTree Ventures, an Australia-based venture-capital firm, co-led the Series A.
See the 12-page pitch deck that LawVu, a startup that wants to be Salesforce for lawyers, used to nab $17 million from investors like Insight Partners
Athennian
Athennian, which helps law firms and legal departments manage data and workflow around legal entities, raised a $7 million CAD (more than $5.5 million USD) Series A extension in the beginning of March 2021, nearly doubling its initial $8 million Series A round last year.
Athennian's revenue and headcount more than doubled since the original Series A, according to founder and CEO Adrian Camara. He declined to disclose revenue numbers, but said that the sales and marketing team grew from 35 people in September to around 70 in March.
Launched in 2017, Athennian is used by nearly 200 legal departments and law firms, including Dentons, Fastkind, and Paul Hastings, to automate documents like board minutes, stock certificates, and shareholder consents.
The Series A extension was led by Arthur Ventures. New investors Touchdown Ventures and Clio's CEO, Jack Newton, also participated in the round, alongside Round13 Capital and other existing investors. To date, Athennian has raised $17 million CAD, or around $14 million USD, in venture capital funding, per Pitchbook.
Here's the small but mighty pitch deck that nearly doubled legal tech Athennian's Series A to $12 million.
Evisort
Contract tech is the frontrunner in the legal tech space, as companies across industries seek to streamline their contract creation, negotiation, and management processes.
Evisort, a contract lifecycle management (CLM) platform, raised $35 million in its Series B announced late February 2021, bringing total funding to $55.5 million. The private equity firm General Atlantic led its latest funding round, with participation from existing investors Amity Ventures, Microsoft's venture firm M12, and Vertex Ventures.
Founded in 2016, Evisort uses artificial intelligence to help businesses categorize, search, and act on documents.
Its CEO Jerry Ting founded Evisort while he was still attending Harvard Law School. He spent one summer working at Fried Frank, but soon realized that he didn't want to be a lawyer because he didn't want to spend excruciating hours manually reading fifty-page contracts. He did, however, recognize how important they are to corporations, and co-founded Evisort as a tool to locate and track valuable information like a contract's expiration date and obligations like payment dates.
Evisort's CEO walks through the 11-page pitch deck that the contract software startup used to nab $35 million from investors like General Atlantic — and lays out its path to an IPO
Contractbook
Try to imagine the contracts negotiation process, and one might conjure up a scene where a sheaf of papers, tucked discreetly into a manila folder, is shuttled from one law office to the mahogany table of another. With a stroke of a fountain pen, the deal is sealed.
Those old-school methods have long been replaced with the adoption of PDFs, redlined versions of which zip from email inbox to inbox. Now, contracting is undergoing another digital shift that will streamline the process as companies are becoming more comfortable with tech and are seeking greater efficiencies — and investors are taking note.
Contractbook, a Denmark-based contract lifecycle management platform, raised $9.4 million in its Series A investment round late 2020, led by venture capital titan Bessemer Venture Partners. In November 2019, Gradient Ventures, Google's AI-focused venture fund, led Contractbook's $3.9 million seed round.
Founded in Copenhagen in 2017, Contractbook uses data to automate documents, offering an end-to-end contracts platform for small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Niels Brøchner, the company's CEO and co-founder, said that Contractbook was born out of the notion that existing contract solutions failed to use a document's data — from names of parties to the folder the document is stored in — to automate the process and drive workflow.
Here's the 13-page pitch deck that Contractbook, which wants to take on legal tech giants like DocuSign, used to raise $9.4 million from investors like Bessemer Ventures
Disco
Cloud-based technology is having its moment, especially in the legal industry.
As attorneys have been propelled to work remotely amid the pandemic, data security and streamlined work processes are top-of-mind for law firms, leading them to adopt cloud technology.
Investors are taking note. Disco, a cloud-based ediscovery platform that uses artificial intelligence to streamline the litigation process, snapped up $60 million in equity financing in October 2020.
Its Series F, led by Georgian Partners and also backed by VC titans like Bessemer Venture Partners and LiveOak Venture Partners, brings total investment to $195 million, valuing the company at $785 million.
Launched in Houston in 2012, Disco offers AI-fueled products geared towards helping lawyers review and analyze vast quantities of documents, allowing them to more efficiently determine which ones are relevant to a case.
The CEO of Disco, a legal tech that sells cloud-based discovery software, walked us through a 20-page pitch deck the startup used to nab $60 million
BlackBoiler
BlackBoiler is an automated contract markup software that's used by Am Law 25 firms and several Fortune 1000 companies.
The software uses machine learning to automate the process of reviewing and revising documents in "track changes." This saves attorneys the time they would typically spend marking up contracts that often use standard boilerplate language.
As a pre-execution software used in the negotiation and markup stage of the contracts process, BlackBoiler has carved out a unique space in the $35 billion contracts industry, said Dan Broderick, a lawyer who co-founded the company in 2015 and is now its CEO.
Broderick walked Insider through the pitch deck the company used to attract funding from investors, including DocuSign as well as 10 attorneys that run the gamut from Am Law 50 partners to general counsel at large corporations.