UK-headquartered legal spend analytics and matter tracking software vendor Apperio announced today (10 January) that it has raised a $7 million growth round of venture capital funding. The company will use the funding for product development and to accelerate its expansion into the U.S. market.
Molten Ventures (formerly Draper Esprit) led the investment, which was joined by Notion Capital, IQ Capital, Nextlaw Ventures, Volution and Hambro Perks who provided venture debt. Both Volution and Hambro Perks are new investors included in this round. The announcement today brings the total funding Apperio has raised to date to $19.9 million.
“It’s no secret venture funding has slowed across technology sectors,” said Apperio Non-Executive Chairman David Eldridge. “That Apperio closed on funding with both new and existing investors, in this environment, speaks volumes to the company’s unique position in the legal technology sector, the value the company is delivering to customers and the significant opportunities ahead.”
Apperio was founded in 2011 by CEO, Nicholas d’Adhemar, a lawyer turned private equity investment manager, who noticed that his PE firm was often surprised by the size of law firm invoices. Its legal spend management platform aggregates and analyses both historical and current legal spend, including law firm work-in-progress (WIP) / accruals and provides streamlined invoice approval workflow. The software does this, in part, by connecting directly to the practice management systems of law firms. Where many existing solutions on the market today pit corporate counsel and law firms against each other, Apperio has built out dashboard tools that provide law firms with a client-centric view of their legal spend data. This fosters a shared understanding between law firms and their clients – and shifts the focus back to the legal work at hand instead of the adversarial haggling that traditionally festered over invoices and discounts.
Customers include Network Rail, Cornerstone, Phoenix Group and Royal London. The latter described how Apperio was part of a larger legal digital transformation project in a recent case study published in The Docket by the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) and there are more than 250 global law firms connected to the Apperio platform.
“We’re deeply grateful to our investors whose commitment has enabled Apperio to think differently about this enduring problem of transparency in the business of law,” said d’Adhemar. “We’re looking forward to their continued collaboration in this next chapter as we build out our legal spend management software and strive to strengthen the relationship between corporate counsel and their law firms.”