Lawyers and legal education aggregating platform, Lawyered Friday said it is seeking to raise Rs. 7 crore in a pre-series funding from investors, days after it concluded an angel investment round.
The startup is bringing practicing advocates, and clients on a technology platform and onboarding legal students and connecting them with jobs in law firms. Besides, it is providing mentorship, content and insight on legal developments to law students.
“We are working to bring on board 25,000 advocates in next 10-12 months from around 2000 now, and the number will multiply further with time. We have started reaching out to tier 2 and tier 3 cities. We are talking to possible investors to raise Rs. 7 crore in a pre-series funding,” Himanshu Gupta, the co-founder of the startup said.
Gupta said his tech-platform is democratizing the common people’s access to lawyers across several cities. “There are at least demand for a three billion legal helps – from notarized record to startup compliance, from family legal cases to criminal offences every year, but people are not aware about how to get legal help and how to reach out to lawyers of their choice,” he said.
Gupta said smaller companies or even common people don’t look for lawyers beyond their cities because of the limited visibility of advocates. “While it’s often a challenge for small companies, startups and individuals to get the right legal support, our start-up helps them through its digital platform to get an array of legal experts to choose from without any commission or fee,” he claimed.
So far, the start-up has raised Rs. 15 million in seed and angel investment. “The covid-19 has increased the acceptance of technology adoption in the legal fraternity as well as people who are not hesitating to seek legal help while sitting in remote locations with the help of technology. This is aiding our growth and we see good potential here,” Gupta added.
Lawyered said it will utilize fresh funds raised recently and the funds it seeks to raise to expand their reach, and improve the technology features including artificial intelligence (AI)-based super bots and discovery tools to boost engagement.