Exclusive: Legal Tech Startup Lawyered To Raise INR 3 Cr In Bridge Round The startup is seeking the interests of institutional investors, family offices and early-stage venture capitals. India Accelerator Network is likely to be part of the round
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Gurgaon-based legal tech startup Lawyered is in talks to raise INR 3 crore worth of funding in its bridge round. The startup is seeking the interests of institutional investors, family offices and early-stage venture capitals. India Accelerator Network is likely to be part of the round.
In an interaction with Entrepreneur India, Himanshu Gupta founder and the chief executive officer of Lawyered confirmed that the platform will soon raise the bridge round. According to him, the capital will be utilized in technology and product development, expansion of the legal operations and sales/marketing in unchartered territories.
The startup is further planning to launch Lawyered On-Wheelz, the country's first subscription-based product to provide PAN India, 24X7 on-road legal assistance to commercial vehicles making them legally empowered, and various other initiatives.
Lawyered is a legal tech startup founded in 2017 by Gupta and Ashish Bhatia. The startup has over 50,000 experienced lawyers to help people/companies in legal matters. A person can get legal assistance by visiting their platform. The startup solves queries, arranges lawyers on-call and book appointments. Lawyered to date has raised nearly INR 1.5 crore from two different angel rounds and was also part of the second cohort of India Accelerator.
As per Gupta, who is a B.tech graduate and has spent 13 years in the legal-tech domain, in India, there are over 3 billion legal interventions every year. However, India is home to only 2.3 million legal professionals with 1,00,000 being added every year.
In the legal industry, too like the others, there are two sides - the demand and the supply. On the demand side, India generates over 3 billion+ legal interventions per year. On the supply side, we have 2.3 million+ legal professionals with almost 80% actively practicing and nearly 100K being added every year.
"Despite these towering figures, the conversion rate is extremely poor. On the demand side, the consumers are not aware of basics like when, where, and how to reach out to a suitable lawyer - so they tend to avoid taking legal discourse. And on the supply side, the lawyers have limited business generating opportunities due to various regulations on the professionals in India," Gupta added.
Gupta saw the huge gap in the market and ideated the concept of Lawyered to organize this sector.
Lawyered is also helping law students to connect with law firms for internships, job opportunities, networking, mentoring, learning, among others.
Since its inception, the startup has garnered over 12 million visits from 200 countries and has catered to queries from over 50,000 startups, 10,000 corporates, and 100,000 individuals.
The startup claims to work on a zero-commission model and also provides 30 minutes of a free consultation.
The startup is now working on Lawyered 2.0 to structure the demand side from reactive to proactive by empowering legal advice seekers in a way that they don't run into problems.
"We are creating customized focussed solutions for consumers to live the 'prevention is better than cure' principle," Gupta added.
In the backdrop of the pandemic, the startup has also come up with a vaccine finder platformt that refreshes in every 4 seconds.
Though the country in the last few years has seen a growing presence of legal tech startups such as LawRato, PracticeLeague, Legal kart, Presolve360, among others, Gupta says there is no match for Lawyered.
"To put it simply (at the cost of perhaps oversimplifying it), our "competitors" catch fish and sell it to their clients - but we are in the business of teaching our clients how to catch fish. We are sure you understand the rest," he said.
He underlined that the legal sector is one of the sectors that continue to rely on age-old mechanics and most stakeholders are skeptical to adapt to new-age technology. However, he pointed out that with the newer generation of tech-savvy lawyers, it is easier to convey and showcase the strength of Lawyered's platform.
