Opus 2 International has received a significant minority investment from Five Arrows Principal Investments, the corporate private equity business of Rothschild Merchant Banking which is the investment arm of Rothschild & Co.
Founded in 2008 and headquartered in London, Opus 2 provides a range of collaborative software and services for use throughout the litigation and arbitration lifecycle. Its innovative technologies have been instrumental in the global move towards paperless trials and hearings, thus speeding up legal processes while also creating a massive environmental dividend. The Company employs 150 staff worldwide with offices in London, Edinburgh, San Francisco, New York and Singapore. Since its founding, Opus 2 has delivered double digit revenue growth every year with 65% compounded topline growth over the past eight years thanks primarily to the continuing global expansion of its customer base.
The catalyst for much of Opus 2’s growth to date has been its patented, cloud-based Opus 2 Magnum platform, which streamlines legal proceedings, facilitating secure collaboration throughout litigation and arbitration matters and enabling hearings to be conducted electronically, generating significant cost savings. Since it was first used in the UK courts on the Berezovsky v Abramovich trial in 2011, Magnum has become a near industry standard for document heavy disputes in the UK, with over 90% of the top 50 UK law firms counted among its clients.
Graham Smith, CEO and founder of Opus 2, said: “We are delighted to have Five Arrows Principal Investments as our chosen investor in Opus 2 International. By taking a significant equity stake in the company, Five Arrows has demonstrated a shared faith in our long-term vision and strategy for the business, its products and its staff. Our partnership with Five Arrows will enable us to enhance our investment in the growth of our core litigation and arbitration business to ensure we carry on innovating and supporting our rapidly expanding client base.”
Javed Khan, Co-Managing Partner of Five Arrows said: “We are very pleased to have partnered with Graham and the rest of his management team as Opus 2 begins this very exciting phase of its journey. As an investment house, we have a long held interest in investing in software and technology-enabled businesses that serve the legal industry. Given the mission criticality of its product offering, the demonstrably high level of customer advocacy and the company’s unrelenting focus on being the industry’s innovator, Opus 2 is an ideal investment for Five Arrows. ”
In selecting Five Arrows as its investment partner Opus 2 International was advised by San Francisco, boutique investment bank Vista Point Advisors, a member of FINRA and SIPC.
Intapp just announced Intapp Open Pricing, a budgeting and planning software solution specifically designed to enable professional services firms to make better informed pricing decisions.
Using Intapp Open Pricing, firms can scope, price and resource matters when pitching for new business or at any point in the client engagement lifecycle, resulting in more accurate planning, a better client experience, and improved profitability. “The ability to provide clients with budget estimates quickly – and accurately – can be a significant differentiator for firms today, whether their clients are requiring alternative fee arrangements, or prefer billing by the hour,” said Kushan Patel, Director of Product Management, Intapp. “Many of our customers have been asking us to develop a fresh approach to budgeting and planning for some time, and we’re very pleased to announce that Intapp Open Pricing will be the next addition to the growing Intapp Open suite.”
Intapp Open Pricing is designed to be accessible to practitioners as well as pricing professionals, with user-friendly wizards that make it straightforward to build budgets. The system includes modelling tools that simplify the development of profitability and service delivery scenarios, as well as budget tracking and monitoring. Like all Intapp products, Intapp Open Pricing is designed from the ground up to work in real-world environments, offering integration with other business systems typically used within professional services firms. Early adopters of Intapp Open Pricing include Dickinson Wright, a law firm headquartered in Detroit, Michigan with a long history of excellence in client service.
Epona, based in Europe and the US, announced the beta launch of Epona Legal Matter Management using Microsoft Teams.
Leveraging the Microsoft Teams Desktop application with the Epona tools and Matter Center, law firms and corporate legal departments can work in a single application that accesses their Contacts, Email, DMS SharePoint stored documents, Time & Billing solution and more.
“We have been working on this since the launch of Teams by Microsoft earlier this year. And have already begun providing a few firms with beta instances for testing”, said Marcel Lang, President, Epona USA. He added, “As Microsoft continues to improve the Office 365 offering with powerful products and capabilities such as BI, Planner, Groups, OneDrive for Business and more, Epona continues to find ways to make lawyers even more productive by holistically combining traditional DMS with the power of Office 365.”
Epona’s approach builds on the already capable Teams desktop application, by making accessible the full power of a SharePoint DMS, as well as Time & Billing, while delivering a simpler methodology for deploying “the dashboard” of all matter related elements in the Teams interface.