Tuesday 28 May 2019 4:37 pm | Updated: Monday 17 June 2019 10:23 pm

Facebook-backer Index Ventures leads $4m series A for UK legal startup

Seedlegals, which helps UK startups automate the fundraising process, has secured $4m (£3.2m) in funding from one of the world's most successful venture capital firms.

San Francisco and London-based Index Ventures led the series A funding round, putting Seedlegals among the likes of Facebook, Just Eat and Slack in its portfolio. Additional participation was provided by Kima Ventures, The Family and existing investor Seedcamp.

The startup was founded in 2017 by its chief executive Anthony Rose, who was behind the launch of BBC's iPlayer. Seedlegals fully manages the automation of the startup funding process from start to finish, including all negotiation, legal documents and shareholder agreements.

It said around eight per cent of the UK's early-stage investment deals are closed via its platform, with an average of 2-3 funding rounds being completed every day.

“Our focus is on helping to simplify fundraising, and we’ve had an amazing response from startups who find the whole process quite painful,” said Rose.

“However, we believe fundraising is just the start. The same approach can be applied to many other legal processes through the journey of a business. The goal of Seedlegals is to empower all parties with data and a modern technology platform, letting them focus on building the business and serving their customers.”

Index Ventures principal investor Hannah Seal will join the board as part of the deal. The funding round itself was closed using Seedlegals' platform.

“For startups who spend thousands on legal fees on agreements that vary little from company to company, this is an absolute no-brainer,” said Seal.

“The ambition is to expand the same model to other areas of business, helping startups retain legal budget for strategic work rather than administrative execution.”