The England and Wales Law Society has partnered with Seedrs, an equity crowdfunding company, to connect its members with innovative Legal Tech startups looking for investment.
The Law Society said it is encouraging law firms to adopt and support innovative tech solutions as it set out its vision for a more integrated legal tech ecosystem at this year’s Legal Geek conference.
With the UK legal services market worth in excess of £26 billion a year, there is a significant opportunity for ambitious and innovative startups to boost the legal industry, providing a range of complementary services to help the incumbents improve their existing service. According to a report by Legal Geek, the UK’s largest legaltech community, 46 per cent of legaltech start-ups are innovating to help law firms become more efficient and win new customers, and with a 160 per cent increase in new legaltech businesses launching year on year, the space is growing at a rate in keeping with demand.
In fact, the success of fintech in the UK has in many ways paved the way for legaltech businesses to thrive. In the same way that fintech has flourished because the UK offers access to best-in-class tech talent, ample growth capital and progressive regulation, new legaltech businesses can take advantage of the same factors, supported by a world leading legal profession.
Seedrs is an equity crowdfunding platform for investing in startups and later-stage businesses throughout Europe. Seedrs allows users to invest as little as £10 or €10 into the business of their choice and lets early-stage startups and more established businesses raise investment from friends, family, customers, angel investors, venture capitalists and other independent investors in exchange for equity in the business. The platform offers three types of campaigns for investment – equity, funds and convertible equity campaigns.
Seedrs is an “all or nothing” platform where companies do not receive any funding unless they reach their declared investment target, but businesses have the chance to accept more than originally asked for in a process called “overfunding”.
Seedrs allows a wider base of potential investors, among the mass affluent, access to startup investing – an asset class that was previously only available to high-net-worth or sophisticated angel investors.
