LawVu raises $17m in funding round, sets sights on global expansion

LawVu, the legal tech startup for in-house legal teams, has officially raised $17 million NZD in Series A funding.

The round was led by New York-based global private equity and venture capital firm Insight Partners, with support from leading Australian venture capital firm AirTree Ventures.

LawVu states the company will use the investment to extend its category leadership.

After tripling annual recurring revenue in 2020, and with more than two-thirds of recurring revenue now coming from the US and Australian markets, LawVu will hire key leadership roles in the US to drive global go-to-market, open US offices and accelerate development of its platform for corporate in-house legal teams, according to a statement.

The company states that LawVu's international growth has gone from strength to strength, signing deals with top enterprises such as Telstra, AMP, Linktree, Expedia, PwC and most recently San Francisco-based tech company Instacart. LawVu now has users based in more than 30 countries globally.

According to the company, this investment will enable LawVu to continue optimising the performance of in-house legal teams, increasing the quality of in-house legal teams engagement with the broader business.

Traditionally, the limited technology specifically available to in-house legal teams has been dominated by point solutions or products that solve niche problems, but these solutions are disconnected from each other which creates inefficiencies and greater risk of error.

Procuring these tools individually is difficult, and makes it almost impossible to get a holistic view of whats happening across the in-house legal function, LawVu states.

Focusing on solving these issues, LawVu pioneered the connected cloud-based platform built specifically for in-house legal teams, providing a legal workspace to bring all the technology tools an in-house legal team needs into a unified experience.

The platform allows teams to manage all their matters, contracts, documents, e-billing, outsourced work, and reporting from one cloud-based, secure and connected platform, with a growing ecosystem of connected third-party tools.

LawVu is designed for in-house lawyers and also to bring value to the C-suite, by providing new engagement and visibility into the work that the in-house legal team is doing, the company states.

LawVu CEO and cofounder Sam Kidd says, "In-house legal teams perform a critical function inside every corporation. However, you'll often find that the only tech they have is email and word documents, and legal teams are becoming a bottleneck, as the rest of the business leverages technology to speed up.

"It's incredibly exciting to be pioneering a new category and extending our leadership in this space.

Insight Partners managing director, and new LawVu board member, Rachel Geller, says "LawVu's global growth speaks volumes to its future as a business and ability to provide high-value outcomes to legal teams.

"Its combination of intuitive user experience and excellent customer feedback make LawVu a stand out in the legal tech industry. We're excited for our partnership with LawVu as it continues to expand globally.

AirTree Ventures partner James Cameron, which previously invested with LawVu earlier this year, says, "LawVu have found themselves with the right product, in the right market at the right time and were thrilled to be doubling down to support their impressive growth.

"There is a huge push across the in-house legal industry to become more digital and efficient, and LawVu is considered the leader in this space amongst many of the most tech savvy in-house legal teams in the world.

"It's also fantastic to be investing alongside more world-class global investors like Insight to help continue to grow the business in its biggest markets in the US and Europe."

Cameron says, "As we've seen from other global leaders that have emerged from our region such as Canva and Linktree there's huge demand from global investors to invest in fast-growing Aussie and Kiwi tech businesses and this is a testament to the emerging technology ecosystems that are developing here.