AI-driven legal services startup, Lawhive, raises $2M in seed round to revolutionise legal accessibility

Lawhive, the AI powered LegalTech platform, has successfully raised $2M in seed funding to increase transparency and democratise access to legal services for consumers and small businesses in the UK. The round was led by Episode 1 Ventures and includes additional support from Tiny VC and 25 angel investors, including Aron Gelbard (Bloom & Wild Founder), Jonathan Petrides (Allplants Founder) and senior executives from Monzo, Spotify, Meta and N26.

Lawhive was founded by Pierre Proner, Jaime van Oers, and Flinn Dolman who experienced first hand the disparity in legal access when their flights were cancelled during the pandemic and the airline refused a refund. Discovering that the cost of legal advice would be more than the flights themselves and access weighed in the favour of the wealthy, the trio with a background in AI launched their MVP in January 2021.
Lawhive combines human solicitors with AI to automate repetitive tasks such as initial legal assessments, collecting the correct legal documents and evidence, handling billing and compliance checks. The startup has designed the world’s first legal knowledge graph encoding the rules of the legal system and enabling more consumers to access their legal rights.

The unique combination of human lawyers and AI reduces the cost of legal services to the consumer by as much as 70% while the solicitor’s rate remains unaffected. Lawhive’s automation makes casework more efficient for law firms and solicitors meaning less time spent on each case and more clients helped, while maintaining the expertise of regulated solicitors.
Hector Mason, Partner at Episode 1 Ventures comments: “We believe that by using cutting-edge AI, Lawhive can transform the way legal work is carried out for consumers and SMEs who are often most in need of but lack adequate legal assistance. We’re excited to have backed this world-class team disrupting a huge market.”

The investment will be used to expand Lawhive’s product, engineering and operations teams as they reach their goal of helping 10X more customers over the next year, and to further their legal knowledge graph enhancing the automation and user experience within their platform.

Despite the UK market for legal services being worth ~£30B for consumers alone, there is a lack of support and accessibility evidenced by the 3.6M consumers and 1M SMEs who had unmet legal needs last year. The industry remains difficult to understand, trust and afford and is still notorious for slow responses and heartstopping costs that often exceed the value of a claim - the common perception is that legal advice is only available to the wealthy or those who qualify for dwindling state-funded legal aid.
Pierre Proner, CEO and Co-Founder says: “We believe everyone should be able to access the legal system and their legal rights - the law should be a basic utility - this is essential to a truly fair society. Through AI and automation, we’ve been able to help thousands of people who wouldn’t otherwise have had access to legal help. We are thrilled to have backing from investors who share our vision of changing the way people access the law and get legal help.”

Lawhive addresses the most common barriers to entry through its simplicity, clarity and efficiency. The end-to-end legal journey, including all comms with human lawyers, takes place through the Lawhive app with complete transparency on all stages and costs. As we enter a cost of living crisis and period of belt-tightening for consumers and small businesses, having access to the law in an affordable way has never been more important.

Making the legal landscape more equitable and accessible is at the core of Lawhive’s mission and is supported by its impressive investor and advisor backing, including former Executive Director of the SRA, Crispin Passmore, who helped to liberalise the UK’s legal regulatory landscape.