Often described as the legal equivalent of Uber, flexible lawyering start-up Lexoo has secured $4.4m in financing to overhaul its global business development.
The backing has been led by investment house Earlybird with additional financing from Forward Partners and Zoopla general counsel (GC) Ned Staple.
Founded in 2014, Lexoo is a tech platform which allows users to post a legal matter and then receive quotes from its pool of lawyers within two business days. Lawyers are reviewed after every piece of work they complete, with those receiving between four and five star ratings being treated more favourably by the algorithm, thus making them more likely to be instructed.
Currently Lexoo comprises more than 800 lawyers across 55 countries, most of whom have ten to 15 years’ experience at large law firms.
Chief executive and co-founder Daniel van Binsbergen (pictured), formerly a senior associate at leading Dutch firm De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek, told Legal Business: ‘A few years ago we just had UK lawyers but now we have lawyers in over 55 countries. No law firm has more lawyers in more countries than us.
‘We want to capitalise on that by having more business development people in those countries. We also want to invest even more in our tech – we have project management software now that lets clients see the projects that the lawyers are working on and gives them full transparency.’
Van Binsbergen also spoke about the type of lawyer Lexoo tends to attract, noting that the average age is between 35 and 45. He said: ‘It’s part of a wider trend of society. People would rather work on their own terms.’
Lexoo has claimed some major client scalps, landing roles on the legal advice panels of both Vodafone and Travelodge. In a Legal Business round table event earlier this year, Sarah Rosser, head of Vodafone’s enterprise legal team, said: ‘Lexoo is a way of getting 60 different law firms on your panel but not having 60 different law firms. They will take an RFP and go out to market and find the best rate. It is an interesting disruptor.’
Lexoo currently generates £3m in gross annual revenues and has a team consisting of 14 people.
For more on the legal start-ups vying for positions in the market, read our special report ‘The wheat from the chaff – Hustling start-ups meet City law’