Expectations are high for lawtech firm Lupl, as the lawtech firm concluded a US$14 million ($18.6 million) funding round ahead of its 2021 launch. With the additional funds taking its overall funding beyond US$25 million, it claims to be amongst the most well-backed lawtech startups at its present stage of development.
“Raising US$ 14 million from our investors reflects the incredible momentum which Lupl has built up over the last nine months. I am excited about the continued growth of our team and community around this open industry platform that has the potential to transform the legal market for the better for all,” says Lupl’s newly-appointed CEO, Jeff Green.
Lupl is an open industry platform for legal matters developed by a group of legal departments and law firms around the world. Through a matter synchronisation software, it provides a one-stop shop for people, conversations, documents and data for legal matters. It is incubated by international law firms CMS, Cooley and Singapore-based Rajah & Tann Asia.
The lawtech firm has also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Singapore’s Ministry of law to use its platform to advance the digitalisation of Singapore’s legal sector. The initiative will kick off in 1Q2021 with a series of industry engagement sessions.
In addition, Lupl also has more than 100 other industry partnerships in progress as part of its open industry platform vision. It possesses a “bring your own system” technology that is compatible with tools that lawyers already use today.
According to Lupl, these partnerships span enterprise communication and collaboration tools, document management systems, pricing and scoping tools, data and analytics tools and standards, and industry knowledge libraries. Further details regarding current and future partnerships are expected in the months ahead.
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Since March 2020 Lupl has been conducting worldwide private beta testing, with over 500 companies in more than 50 countries currently represented on its beta waitlist. The group behind Lupl represents more than 10,000 lawyers in more than 100 jurisdictions. Prominent members of the wider testing group include Slaughter and May, Corrs Chambers Westgarth, Khaitan & Co and One Essex Court.
During the beta tests, Lupl has completed more than 30 development sprints and added several hundred new product features in response to user feedback. Among these is a “Knowledge Hub”, which provides a global repository of matter and workflow templates to operationalise legal knowledge and repeatable processes. It also boasts a data and analytics dashboard to surface real-time analytics on legal matters.
“During our beta phase, we’ve been blown away by the interest in our open industry platform amongst legal departments, law firms, technology and knowledge providers,” says Matt Pollins, Lupl’s newly-appointed chief commercial officer.
Pollins was previously a former partner and head of telecommunications, media and technology with CMS in the Asia-Pacific. Cheryl Wilson Griffin, a lawtech thought leader with 18 years’ experience, has also joined Lupl as chief customer officer.
Lupl expects its wider public release to commence from the beginning of April 2021. Its initial focus will be on accelerating rollout within participating organisations, followed by a phased onboarding of legal partners and firms. By end-2021, it expects to have a headcount of more than 75 people worldwide.
“This is a pivotal year for Lupl and I’m excited to be joined by Jeff and Cheryl as we start to scale up our global team to launch the platform in 2021,” says Pollins.
