New Zealand in-house law tech platform LawVu ventures into US market

New Zealand in-house law tech platform LawVu ventures into US market

With $12 million raised through Series A funding, the Kiwi firm looks to accelerate US expansion

New Zealand's legal technology startup LawVu has decided to foray into the lucrative US market for expansion with a fund of $12 million raised through Series A funding.

The funding was led by New York-based private equity and venture capital firm Insight Partners.

The fresh round of funding followed a highly successful year for the Tauranga- based LawVu after it reported having tripled its annual recurring revenue last year, with more than two-thirds of this sum coming from the US and Australian markets.

According to reports, the firm has plans of using the new cash injection to hire professionals in some key leadership roles in the US to accelerate the development of its platform for corporate in-house legal teams.

LawVu managed to create a niche for itself in the crowded legaltech market by creating a solution specifically targeting in-house legal teams that tend to be relatively underserved by the advanced tech-based business solutions available in the arena.

LawVu's cloud-based platform claims to resolve traditional in-house legal team tech challenges, including disjointed 'point solutions' or digital products that only solve very niche problems. It promises to streamline operations and provide a 'legal workspace' that brings all the tech tools that an in-house legal team requires for a 'unified experience'.

The company in a statement said that its product also improves the experience of those in the C-suite by 'providing new engagement and visibility into the work the in-house legal team is doing. s

"In-house legal teams perform a critical function inside every corporation. However, you'll often find that the only 'tech' they have is email and word documents, and legal teams are becoming a bottleneck, as the rest of the business leverages technology to speed up. It's incredibly exciting to be pioneering a new category and extending our leadership in this space," Sam Kidd, co-founder and CEO of LawVu, said.

The Kiwi startup's aggressive push beyond the native New Zealand market has led it to serve users in more than 30 countries and sign big-name deals with Telstra, AMP, Linktree, Expedia, PwC and most recently San Francisco-based tech company Instacart.

James Cameron, a partner of AirTree Ventures, an Australian venture capital firm that assisted on the funding round and previously invested with LawVu earlier this year, added: 'There is a huge push across the in-house legal industry to become more digital and efficient, and LawVu is considered the leader in this space amongst many of the most tech savvy in-house legal teams in the world."

Cameron added, "As we've seen from other global leaders that have emerged from our region such as Canva and Linktree – there's huge demand from global investors to invest in fast-growing Aussie and Kiwi tech businesses and this is a testament to the emerging technology ecosystems that are developing here."