It’s been an exciting month at The LegalTech Fund (and lots more to come 😉). If you’re not already following our LinkedIn page, we announced new investments in Claraand Pigeon Loans and shared the story about our investment in Fairmint. If you're an entrepreneur working on something in the space, please say hello!
Additionally, congrats to Josef for its new LexisNexis partnership and check out SoloSuit’s George Simons discuss the dramatic increase of debt collection lawsuits on the Talk Justice podcast.
💰 In the Money: April Fundings (search our funding directory here)
Athennian, a digital legal entity management technology, raised a $33M Series B led by Centana Growth Partners.
🎉 Clara, a platform for startups to manage their legal needs, raised funding from The LegalTech Fund.
Filevine, a legal matter and project management solution, raised a $108M Series D led by StepStone Group.
HalloLex, a document automation platform, raised €500K.
InvestorFlow, a documentation and communication platform for asset managers and investors, raised a $30M Series A led by Ambina Partners.
January, a legal and compliance platform for debt collection providers, raised $10M led by Brewer Lane Ventures.
LawVu, a collaboration tool for in-house lawyers, raised a $NZ20M Series A led by Insight Partners.
Leasecake, a digital lease management platform, raised a $12M Series A led by PeakSpan Capital.
LinkSquares, an AI-enabled contract management and analysis software, raised a $100M Series C led by G Squared.
Privy, a tool to manage data compliantly in web3 applications, raised an $8.3M Seed led by Sequoia Capital and BlueYard Capital.
Sprout, an equity and token management platform, raised a $3M Seed.
Sydecar, which offers administrative support to venture firms and SPVs, raised an $8.3M Seed led by Deciens Capital.
Themis, a government and regulatory compliance platform, raised a $9M Seed led by TTV Capital.
Acquisitions
LEAP, a legal practice management platform, acquired WealthCounsel and ElderCounsel, practice management solutions for estate and elder law, respectively.
Centerbase, a practice management tool for law firms, acquired Legalfit, a provider of law firms websites.
Accelerators
Startups looking to enter or grow in the govtech market can apply for CivStart’s program.
News from the world of law
📃 Regulators need to answer questions revolving IP, ownership, and consumer rights as NFT-related cases flood the courts and FTX’s GC calls NFT copyright infringement their most challenging legal problem.
In the meantime, crypto companies and their lobbyists are increasingly passing crypto-friendly laws in state legislatures across the country.
🏛 Lobbyists are also impacting states' data privacy legislation, raising concerns about policies' effectiveness in protecting personal data.
The Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers issues a proposal to that would allow US attorneys to practice law regardless of geographical location.
Hogan Lovells launches DriveChain, an interoperable document management software that creates smart documents by adding structured data.
The Court of Appeals reiterated that website scraping does not violate federal law.
The EU’s Digital Services Act will impose a 0.1% fee on large online platforms’ net income to cover the cost of monitoring how sites are complying with content moderation guidelines.
The IAALS introduced Allied Legal Professionals, a program to develop a new category of legal jobs to help provide affordable and accessible legal services.
📈 Lawyers’ enthusiasm about practicing in the metaverse is growing, as many believe opening digital practices will help drive new relationships and business for their firms.
A TR study in the UK shows wide adoption for esignature and legal research tech but lower usage of newer platforms (which represents opportunities for startups!).
The same report indicated the Big Four professional service firms continue to increase their share of the ALSP market in the UK.
Even when virtual jury trials offer convenience, concerns about technical issues and problems with concentrating persist.
📚 While not strictly news, these legaltech short stories are worth checking out.
👂 Listen
This legal parody of Encanto’s “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” is a must watch (6 min).
An interview with Nikki Shaver and Jeroen Plink of Legaltech Hub, a new directory of legal technology solutions (52 min).
An exploration of the metaverse and its promise for the legal industry (44 min).
Jonathan Pyle reveals the story behind Docassemble, an open source software for document automation (38 min).
📖 What else I'm reading
📚 Book of the month: Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So
Even more 📚📚: Barnes & Noble’s transformation from enemy to lynchpinfor independent bookstores.
🌅 Why is a lake filing its own lawsuit?
Andreesen Horowitz and Sequoia are launching their own accelerator-style programs.
📅 The story of how Tope Awotona built Calendly.
Speaking of words, AI’s mastery of language will have far-reaching implications. Already, its use for online content moderation is changing how we speak.