REUTERS/Jason Lee
Only a few weeks has passed, since another tremendously successful Legal Geek conference. Yet there is still buzz about the rapid progress for legaltech startups.
At Legal Geek, a joint report was published by Thomson Reuters and Legal Geek ‘Legaltech Startup Report 2019—A Maturing Market‘. Abigail Conner, Strategy Manager at Thomson Reuters, presented some of the key findings of the research. The audience hung on her every word. Why? Because there has been a recent significant increase in legaltech startup funding.
Investment into UK legal technology startups reached £60.8m in 2018, more than doubling the £22m invested in the previous 12 months. The even more impressive figure is that legaltech startup investment in the first nine months of 2019 has already reached £61.7m.
The UK is the hub of European legal technology, with UK legaltech startups making up 44 percent of all legaltech startups in the EU. This is far higher than the UK’s share of the European legal services market at just 23 percent. According to the report, the rise and maturity of the sector is due to the wide-ranging network of legaltech incubators created by law firms, corporate organisations and universities.
Jim Leason, vice president, Customer Markets at Thomson Reuters, said: “The UK benefits from a unique mix of a large tech and data science talent pool and world-leading law firms as well as easy access to capital through financial markets. This has enabled the fast-growing legaltech sector to thrive”.
“Legaltech is now attracting funding from a variety of sources, including law firms themselves, private equity and venture capital funds. This interest has given start-ups the crucial leg-up they needed to take their products quickly through to the next stage of development and testing.”
“The speed at which the legaltech market is maturing is evidence both of demand for these products and the quality of the support infrastructure in place for start-ups. Investors from across the world have clearly spotted the growth potential.”
To stay at the fore of the trends building to the record year of investment in legaltech startups, download your copy of ‘Legaltech Startup Report 2019—A Maturing Market‘.
