Lupl, an open industry platform created for managing legal matters, announced that it has secured $14 million in a recent funding round led by Cooley LLP, CMS, and Rajah & Tann Asia. This brings the company’s total fundraising proceeds to $25 million.
As the company prepares for its launch in April 2021, Lupl also installed a new Chief Executive Officer, Jeff Green, who used to be the Managing Director at Ankura and Navigant Consulting. He joins the company’s Chief Commercial Officer Matt Pollins, who also serves as CMS Technology, Media & Communications Partner in Singapore and London. The company expects to grow into a 75-strong team by the end of 2021 with operations in different parts of the world.
“Raising $14m 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,” said Green.
For his part, CCO Matt Pollins said that the platform addresses the typically narrow solutions offered by most legal tech platforms. “If you look at legal tech, people have been very focused on narrow solutions to problems, but what is unique about Lupl is that it is an industry-wide effort that looks at the bigger picture. This is why we brought in several law firms, a large group of legal departments, and a number of technology players,” Pollins explained.
Lupl also recruited Cheryl Wilson Griffin, the former Legal Technology Solutions Chief of King & Spalding. She was also a former Client Relationships Director at Opus 2 International, a LegalTech with a presence in the Asia-Pacific region.
Lupl operates with an advisory board composed of 16 in-house lawyers from international blue-chip companies including Airbnb General Counsel EMEA Fiona Dormandy, BHP Vice-President Lyndon Arnall, Credit Suisse Vice-President Alex Westmoreland, Deutsche Bank AG London Associate General Counsel Geoffrey de Souza, HP Associate General Counsel Patrick Scott, Instacart General Counsel Morgan Fong, and Turo Chief Legal Officer Michelle Fang.
Lupl is a privately-held company based in Washington, DC specializing in the management of large volumes of legal transactions. It has been increasing its presence in Asia as it recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Law of Singapore to advance the city-state’s legal sector digitalization.
The Government of Singapore has been promoting the adoption of technology in the legal sector to bolster efficiency. In May 2020, a partnership between Singapore’s Ministry of Law, Infocomm Media Development Authority, Enterprise Singapore, and the Law Society of Singapore launched SmartLaw Guild to facilitate knowledge sharing and the pooling of legal resources in Singapore.
There are no details yet as to how Lupl will be involved in SmartLaw Guild, but the company said that their collaboration with the Ministry of Law will start with a series of industry engagement sessions in the first quarter of the year.
Lupl has been conducting a global beta testing phase for its platform since March 2020. Some of the firms involved in the testing are Corrs Chambers Westgarth, Slaughter and May, One Essex Court, and Khaitan & Co. The company said more than 500 companies and legal departments in over 50 countries are on the waitlist for its platform launch including the Ministry of Law of Singapore. It has also forged more than 100 industry partnerships.
In a press statement, Lupl said that the platform is on schedule for wider public release at the start of April 2021. The service rollout will initially focus on participating organizations and industry partners and eventually proceed to a phased onboarding of the hundreds of law firms and legal departments on the waitlist.
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