Investors in hot Aussie tech start-ups like Canva, Temple & Webster and Ansarada recently invested $1.3 million in another high-growth tech start-up on a tear, LawPath – an online hub that SMBs are using to manage their legal affairs – best described as “the Xero of legal”.
In the oversubscribed bridging round, LawPath secured $1.3 million from three lead investors: Macdoch Ventures — the family office of former News Corporation executive Alasdair MacLeod and investor in notable high-growth Australian start-ups such as Canva, Temple & Webster and Siteminder; Adcock Group, also Canva investors and founder of Pandora Jewellery; and a syndicate led by Ben Keeble, Principal at Fort Street Advisors and Director of technology company Ansarada.
There is a huge shift towards SaaS legal happening in the Aussie market and LawPath intends use this funding to cater for the rapid increase in demand, bolster its legal hub and support development of future integrations and partnerships on its growth roadmap.
Catching a growing wave
LawPath co-founder and CEO Damien Andreasen said, “Just as has happened in other industries, there is a major shift occurring in Australian business in the way they seek legal advice — from simple contracts to complex matters such as capital raising.”
“We have experienced increased demand for our services in recent months and this funding round will allow us to cater to that growing need for innovative, accessible and affordable legal advice, to ensure that Australian SMBs are compliant and can spend more time focused on growing their business.
“The new law model is becoming more popular with law firms who now use modern digital marketing techniques to attract new customers. Our competitive advantage is scale and our ability to leverage data to make legal easier for businesses.
“Macdock and Adcock are fantastic partners for LawPath. We strategically looked to private equity and high net worth investors for this round because we feel strongly that our funding comes from sources who are heavily invested in our mission to make legal easy for Australian businesses.”
What exactly does LawPath do?
LawPath’s cloud-based legal hub for SMEs provides an easy legal workflow solution, using intelligent technology to a one-stop shop for all the legal services businesses need at a fraction of the time, cost and complexity of the traditional law firm model.
Through the LawPath hub businesses can register a company or trademark, access hundreds of legal and commercial Documents, take a legal health check to determine their level of compliance and access easy to understand legal guides and articles within minutes.
Businesses can find and tailor legal documents which can then be sent to all parties to execute, before finally storing them in LawPath’s easy-to-navigate cloud vault.
LawPath’s Quick Quotes product also allows businesses to receive the best fixed-fee quotes from over 650 trusted Australian lawyers, often at more than 70 per cent cheaper than traditional services, at any stage of the legal process.
“SMBs have always found acquiring legal services complex, time-consuming and expensive, this is highlighted in our recent report which showed almost 80 per cent of SMBs don’t have all of the basic HR and Employment Policies and Agreements in place,” Damien pointed out.
“This has meant many businesses forgo seeking legal advice, which obviously puts personal and business interests at risk. By providing easy online access to these solutions we help thousands of businesses become compliant every month.”
Why has LawPath attracted this funding?
While co-founded by Damien and Phil Morle with founding Investor Nick Abrahams in 2013, today LawPath has 10 employees and is growing like crazy. In the past 12 months, its revenue is up 800 per cent and its user base has grown by 400 per cent.
LawPath now has more than 13,000 SMBs using its platform and has helped save them more than $5 million in combined fees by reducing the cost and complexity of legal services.
Mike Robinson of Macdoch Ventures said, “The legal profession is one of the last services to be transformed by technology. Similar to what Xero has done for Accounting, LawPath makes it easier for businesses to manage their legal obligations and at the same time helps lawyers work more effectively with their clients.”
“It’s an incredibly valuable platform for businesses and lawyers alike. We’re excited about the LawPath team, the mission, and progress to date.”
Brook Adcock of Adcock Group said, “LawPath has grown significantly over the past two years, becoming a key thought leader in the industry. By building a scaleable platform to solve the inherent costs associated with legal services, LawPath is now well placed to become the clear market leader.”
To date, LawPath has raised $2.4 million and plans to seek a Series A funding round in 2017.
