Notion Capital, NextLaw Labs and IQ Capital back legal tech company’s mission to bring transparency and information symmetry to the legal sector.
London 22/03/2016: Apperio, the provider of a real time legal fee tracking platform, today announced that it has closed a £1.7 million seed funding round led by Notion Capital, with participation from, NextLaw Labs and IQ Capital. These respected venture funds have come together with angel investors in support of Apperio’s vision to provide law firms and clients real-time transparency on legal fees that is accurate and meaningful.
After winning London tech accelerator Seedcamp in 2013, Apperio secured an initial funding round led by prominent angels including Stephen Chandler, Jan Reichelt and Andy Phillipps. Within a year of launching the platform, Apperio had already secured ten corporate clients. It has since formed partnerships with 17 of the top 100 UK law firms and monitored over £20 million in legal fees through its system.
This funding round was led by Notion Capital, a fund focused on high potential businesses in the cloud computing and Software-as-a-Service markets. Ian Milbourn, partner at Notion said, “I am incredibly excited to be investing in Apperio. I have thought for some time now that the legal sector is ripe for disruption with the right technology and Apperio is well placed to spearhead this. The time has come for transparency in legal fees. and law firms and their clients are recognizing this. In addition the analytics that the platform provides are invaluable and enable law firms to greatly improve their behavioral and financial performance.”
Apperio CEO and founder Nicholas d’Adhemar, said, “This investment from such a fantastic syndicate really supports our mission to bring meaningful transparency to the legal industry. With the new funding we will be able to grow our core teams to further strengthen our products and support our clients.”
Legal fees are complex and the billing system opaque, to the detriment of both law firms and their clients, with months spent wrangling over fees. As an industry, the average law firm lockup period (unbilled WIP plus debtor days) is 120 days and recovery rates are around 84%. Clients face uncertainty over pricing and find it difficult to accurately understand and budget for their legal work. The Apperio platform equips law firms and businesses with the real-time fee data and tools needed to accurately price, track and assess legal matters, identifying areas for improved efficiency and providing instant value to all.
