Robert Ambrogi Blog
The prominent U.S. investment banking firm Union Square Ventures — known as the backer of technology companies such as Twitter, Twilio, Etsy and Kickstarter, as well as legal research company Casetext — is crossing the pond to lead a $5 million Series A investment round in Juro, a London-based company whose machine learning platform provides end-to-end contract management for businesses in some 50 countries.
USV was joined in the round by existing investors including Point Nine Capital, Seedcamp, Taavet Hinrikus (co-founder of TransferWise) and Paul Forster (co-founder of Indeed). With this Series A and two prior seed rounds, Juro has raised a total of $8 million.
Juro’s product is targeted at business teams in legal, sales and human resources. Its platform, it says, transforms legal contracts from static files into dynamic, modular agreements that integrate easily with core business processes, helping businesses close contracts more quickly and get deeper insight into contract data.
Juro says it will use the funds to double-down on its data proposition, triple the size of its product team and continue to expand its customer base in the EU and U.S. USV partner John Buttrick will join its board.
Juro was founded in 2016 by CEO Richard Mabey, a former associate at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer who later worked with LegalZoom in the UK, and Chief Product Officer Pavel Kovalevich, a business executive based in Riga.
Its customer base covers more than 50 countries and includes companies such as Deliveroo, Reach plc, Envoy and Skyscanner. It has offices in London and Riga.
In October, FT Intelligent Business named Mabey as one of the world’s top-10 legal business technologists, citing him in part for creating “machine-readable contracts in order to view legal documents as tools.”
“Contract management systems are invariably designed by lawyers for lawyers,” Mabey said in a statement. “We’re rebuilding contracts for the end user. We’re delighted to partner with USV as we execute on our vision to transform legal contracts into dynamic, modular agreements that reflect and empower business relationships. It’s great to see so many businesses supporting this approach and joining our community.”
This is not USV’s first investment in the legal industry. It has twice invested in legal research company Casetext, leading its 2015 Series A round of $7 million and participating in its n 2017 Series B round of $12 million.