Australian-founded outside counsel management platform Persuit announced this week that it has acquired London legal spend analytics and matter management software vendor Apperio, 18 months after Apperio’s founder Nicholas d’Adhemar announced he was stepping down as CEO to focus on other ventures. Apperio in 2023 raised $7m in growth venture capital funding, and one of its stated objectives was to accelerate its expansion in the US. In March 2023, Apperio hired Dominic Aelberry as its first chief revenue officer, promoting him to CEO on d’Adhemar’s departure later that year. d’Adhemar has remained as a strategic advisor.
With the acquisition of Apperio, Persuit, founded in 2016 by CEO Jim Delkousis and now headquartered in New York, expands its geographical footprint, deepening its capabilities in Europe. Persuit raised a $20m Series A in 2021 led by Boston venture capital firm OpenView.
In terms of functionality and product strategy, with this acquisition Persuit says it has taken a step forward in building an end-to-end intake to invoice approval and payment platform. Persuit has strengths in AI-powered firm recommendations, scoping, and pricing intelligence, while Apperio delivers transparency into legal spend and real-time invoice validation, ensuring value delivered matches value paid. For in-house legal departments, it also meets a demand for unified solutions rather than a patchwork of tools.
At the heart of Persuit’s vision and roadmap is a drive towards alternative fee arrangements (AFAs) and outcome-based pricing becoming foundational for legal departments. To achieve this, the argument goes, legal leaders need more than better firm selection — they need complete control and insight across the entire lifecycle of outside counsel management.
“This acquisition accelerates our ability to connect every point in the outside counsel workflow with intelligence,” said Delkousis. “We’re not just managing spend — we’re turning it into performance.”
Legal departments are, as always, driving towards becoming or improving their status as strategic business enablers, not just cost centres, and continuously looking for improved ways to demonstrate ROI and efficiency. One of the benefits of this combination is the ability to provide real time data and tracking to enable proactive, as opposed to reactive, decision making and cost control.
Commenting on the acquisition on LinkedIn, d’Adhemar said: “From concept to pitch deck, to MVP, to multi-product platform, I’m excited to see Apperio join forces with Jim Delkousis and the team at PERSUIT. I’ve long admired what they’ve built (anyone remember Legal Tender…) and I know Apperio will reach new heights in it’s new home.” d’Adhemar’s subsequent venture is billing compliance software Antidote Legal.
The Persuit announcement comes at the outset of the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium conference, where generative AI and pricing, we have no doubt, will feature highly. Message us if you’re at the conference and want to share your thoughts or news. [email protected]