Whereas valuations of public software-as-a-service companies have been taking a hammering of late as investors cool on the sector amid a wider, post-pandemic tech inventory sell-off, SaaS startups nonetheless want to boost funding to scale their budding companies — or, nicely, they hope they’ll have the opportunity to take action on cheap phrases regardless of these wider market bumps.
At this time, London-based Legl — a 2019-founded SaaS startup that sells instruments to regulation companies eager to digitize processes and automate workflows in areas like shopper onboarding, funds and compliance to assist a extra fashionable buyer expertise — is asserting the shut of an $18 million Collection B spherical, simply over a yr after it raised a $7M Series A.
The Collection B was led by a number of know-how buyers, together with present investor Octopus Ventures (which led its Collection A), though Legl isn’t specifying the spherical’s different backers. Beforehand disclosed buyers within the enterprise embody Backed, Samaipata and First Spherical Capital, plus plenty of angels.
The startup says it has grown its buyer base from round 100 UK-based regulation companies again in March 2021 to 170+ now — which it specifies contains 20 of the Prime 200 companies within the nation.
It’ll be utilizing the Collection B to kick off deliberate worldwide growth, specializing in different markets the place its UK shopper base has workplaces and ploughing money into product dev and hiring.
“There’s a world alternative for regulation companies to run their companies in a extra fashionable, environment friendly, revenue-driving and client-friendly method. We’re working with our shopper base to start out increasing out to their worldwide workplaces which lie throughout a number of totally different geographies,” says founder and CEO, Julia Salasky.
“Over the previous yr, we’ve constructed out our imaginative and prescient of a brand new class within the authorized house — shopper lifecycle administration — by investing within the underlying CRM that permits regulation companies not solely to digitize beforehand guide enterprise workflows throughout the shopper lifecycle however to grasp their shopper base higher. We’ve leaned into our core competencies in danger administration, compliance and funds and finance, enabling regulation companies to each undertake actions that contact on their regulated enterprise processes but in addition enhance cashflow and drive higher shopper expertise.
“With the brand new funding we are going to develop our workflow pushed method to managing enterprise operations and particularly give attention to how regulation companies can drive quicker income, higher and de-risked monetary administration and a greater shopper expertise. We already allow regulation companies to handle a big proportion of their shopper base and cost stack and plan to drive extra capabilities for extra companies over the approaching months,” she provides.
Salasky, whose identify might also be acquainted as prior founding father of the CrowdJustice platform, tells us Legl has seen 3x income development over the previous yr and 150% internet income retention, suggesting its SaaS is proving a sticky hit with regulation companies.
She declines to reveal the startup’s valuation for the Collection B however confirms the elevate was definitely not a down spherical.
“This can be a massive up spherical for us! Final spherical, final yr we raised $7M and that is an $18M spherical (closed on this new funding local weather!), constructing on the income development and momentum we’ve had,” she notes.
Discussing whether or not the SaaS startup is feeling any influence from a wider market cooling on tech and SaaS shares, she provides: “Regulation companies are notoriously counter-cyclical companies, so that they don’t are likely to endure as a lot as conventional corporates in a downturn. However normally what we see is that as we show elevated worth to regulation companies and drive higher core enterprise operations, we turn into extra, not much less precious, no matter market circumstances.”
Legl founder and CEO, Julia Salasky (Picture credit score: Legl)
Authorized and compliance tech has been an more and more energetic class for startups lately. However Salasky suggests many of the motion has targeted on contract administration or different focused ‘level options,’ whereas Legl goals to face aside by providing a extra holistic platform for regulation companies to energy up their capacity to serve purchasers by offering them with a collection of digital instruments that may automate and assist their enterprise operations. This frees up in-house experience to give attention to extra of the core authorized work.
“There’s an explosion of funding in contract administration and different areas the place the substantive authorized work could possibly be improved. However what we’re doing at Legl takes a special method — we’re targeted on the enterprise of regulation, on the working of a posh regulated enterprise that has purchasers at its coronary heart, and the place thus far there was little or no in the best way of cloud-based know-how,” she suggests.
Commenting on the Collection B in an announcement, Malcolm Ferguson, investor at Octopus Ventures, added: “We’re delighted to proceed to assist Julia and the staff on their mission to unencumber legal professionals’ time so that they give attention to creating worth for his or her purchasers. The corporate has grown actually strongly during the last 12 months, and is positioning itself to turn into the go-to answer for regulation companies seeking to modernise and automate their non-core work. Not solely does this enhance a regulation agency’s revenues, and margins, however [it] additionally means they’ll ship a meaningfully higher expertise to their purchasers. We’re excited to see what Julia can obtain with this funding over the approaching years.”
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