LegalTech Funding Soars in 2021 as VCs and Law Firms Dive In
BY
Steve Glaveski
Venture and growth capital investment into legaltech startups hit a whopping US$1.4 billion for H1 of 2021, a new record for a sector that has always lagged behind larger consumer plays like fintech.
Leading the charge were:
- RocketLawyers, US$223M - Online legal services for individuals and small to medium-sized businesses
- Verbit, US$157M - Voice transcription and captioning platform for legal sector
- Notarize, US$130M - Digital remote notarisation platform for on demand document notarisation
- Clio, US$110M - Cloud-based legal practice management and legal CRM software
- Icertis, US$80M - Contract intelligence platform using AI to read and analyse legal documents
The report, published by investment bank Raymond James, surmises that “as investors and corporate consolidators (a) more fully appreciate the ongoing structural changes across both the ‘Business of Law’ and ‘Practice of Law’; (b) identify the vendors delivering Technology, B2B Media and Business Services addressing these changes with the right products and services; and (c) allocate capital to Legal, deploying the deep pools of cheap capital that remain available to them".
Bloomberg, Wolters Kluwer, RELX Group, and Thomson Reuters are four of the largest players in the space, reshaping their portfolios through a focus on legaltech M&A.
Over the past few years, we’ve seen the emergence and rapid rise of corporate venture capital (CVC), which in 2020 plowed a record US$73.1 billion into deals across the glob. This echoes an increased appetite from large organizations to turn to tech startups to allay them of their growth and innovation challenges.
Law firms too are turning to startups, evident by Allens Linklaters’ Auctus accelerator program, the Mills Oakley Accelerator program, andthe LexisNexis Accelerator, among many others.
Large organizations are increasingly realizing that combining the domain expertise, distribution, and resources of an incumbent, with the talent, tech, and speed of emerging startups, can prove to be mutually beneficial. And in a year when LegalZoom listed for over US$7 billion, law firms are coming to realize that legaltech startups mean serious business and can drive a serious competitive advantage.
Want to learn more about partnering your law firm with startups from across the globe? Get in touch.
Venture and growth capital investment into legaltech startups hit a whopping US$1.4 billion for H1 of 2021, a new record for a sector that has always lagged behind larger consumer plays like fintech.
Leading the charge were:
- RocketLawyers, US$223M - Online legal services for individuals and small to medium-sized businesses
- Verbit, US$157M - Voice transcription and captioning platform for legal sector
- Notarize, US$130M - Digital remote notarisation platform for on demand document notarisation
- Clio, US$110M - Cloud-based legal practice management and legal CRM software
- Icertis, US$80M - Contract intelligence platform using AI to read and analyse legal documents
The report, published by investment bank Raymond James, surmises that “as investors and corporate consolidators (a) more fully appreciate the ongoing structural changes across both the ‘Business of Law’ and ‘Practice of Law’; (b) identify the vendors delivering Technology, B2B Media and Business Services addressing these changes with the right products and services; and (c) allocate capital to Legal, deploying the deep pools of cheap capital that remain available to them".
Bloomberg, Wolters Kluwer, RELX Group, and Thomson Reuters are four of the largest players in the space, reshaping their portfolios through a focus on legaltech M&A.
Over the past few years, we’ve seen the emergence and rapid rise of corporate venture capital (CVC), which in 2020 plowed a record US$73.1 billion into deals across the glob. This echoes an increased appetite from large organizations to turn to tech startups to allay them of their growth and innovation challenges.
Law firms too are turning to startups, evident by Allens Linklaters’ Auctus accelerator program, the Mills Oakley Accelerator program, andthe LexisNexis Accelerator, among many others.
Large organizations are increasingly realizing that combining the domain expertise, distribution, and resources of an incumbent, with the talent, tech, and speed of emerging startups, can prove to be mutually beneficial. And in a year when LegalZoom listed for over US$7 billion, law firms are coming to realize that legaltech startups mean serious business and can drive a serious competitive advantage.
Want to learn more about partnering your law firm with startups from across the globe? Get in touch.
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about the author
Steve Glaveski is a Harvard Business Review contributor on all things high-performance at work. He is the author of Employee to Entrepreneur (Wiley, 2019), and co-founder of Collective Campus, the boutique consultancy behind NewLaw Academy that has generated millions of dollars selling discretionary services to many of the biggest organizations in the world - without the benefit of an established brand,pre-existing relationships, a corporate card, or a large team. Steve previously consulted to the likes of King & Wood Mallesons, Mills Oakley, and Cornwalls, and worked in consulting for EY and KPMG.
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