Josef raises $5.2M to transform legal service delivery

Josef raises $5.2M to transform legal service delivery

Led by OIF Ventures, the funding round, which also included Carthona Capital, Flying Fox Ventures, Jelix Ventures and Saniel Ventures, will support the business as it doubles down on its mission to transform the way legal services are delivered globally. 

Established in Melbourne by lawyers Tom Dreyfus and Sam Flynn and engineer Kirill Kliavin, Josef has made a name for itself as the industry’s no-code automation platform.

Empowering enterprise clients to innovate

The software enables legal professionals to easily build digital tools that automate their day-to-day work, from streamlining intake, to drafting contracts and providing advice. Law firm powerhouses like Gunderson Dettmer, Clifford Chance and MinterEllison, are all active users. 

Speaking of the business and its importance to the legal trade, Joe Green, Director of Client Experience at Gunderson Dettmer said, “We chose to partner with Josef because we believe that providing legal subject-matter experts with intuitive no-code tooling to solve their own problems will yield exciting results. 

“With Josef in our innovation technology stack, our attorneys are empowered to build nimble tools for the long tail of use cases we see for content- and expertise-driven automation. We’re using Josef to rapidly prototype and deliver process and workflow innovations so that the firm can provide more value to our clients more quickly.”

From strength to strength in the US and beyond

Josef will use the new funds to also expand its reach globally through several new hires in the US, alongside APAC, following successful launches in North America and Europe last year. 

Josef has spent the past 18 months working in partnership with its customers to ensure that its product development aligned with their business needs. This focus has led to integration with core systems in the legal technology stack, like DocuSign, Salesforce, Office 365 and iManage.

The evolution of Josef’s platform has seen Josef recently acquire well-known customers including Nutanix, CoreLogic, Bupa, and Who Gives A Crap. 

CEO and co-founder Tom Dreyfus says the business has matured to become the infrastructure layer on which the future of automated legal service delivery is being built.

“Josef is no longer just about helping legal practitioners improve their effectiveness and efficiency through technology, although this is still a core part of our offering. We’re an innovation partner helping the sector automate the nitty gritty so that teams can better assist the people they serve. While we’ve always focused on solving problems for both in-house teams and law firms, we’re now in a position to help the millions of corporate legal teams globally do better. 

“Whether this be helping address unmet justice needs or streamlining operations so that the work that really makes a difference can be prioritised, we’ve created a simple but impactful automation platform that anyone in the legal trade can use. Our focus is now on helping the global industry realise just what is possible.”

It was the team’s passion, and Josef’s compelling combination of a highly skilled and capable founder team that attracted OIF Ventures, says partner and co-founder Jerry Stesel. 

“Tom, Sam and Kirill are deep domain experts who saw a huge opportunity for automation and digitisation in one of the most traditionally manual industries. Having worked as lawyers themselves, Tom and Sam have an authentic passion and drive to make the industry more efficient, freeing up valuable time for lawyers to focus on critical, high value work. 

“When investing we look for a business that has both a solid understanding of their customer’s needs, but also longevity in their ability to service that need. What’s exciting about Josef is its potential once a customer is onboard – the platform’s scope never stops growing.”

Dean Dorrell, partner at Carthona Capital added, “Josef is a truly global business run by a brilliant team producing cutting edge technology. Given they come from the industry themselves, the founders really understand the problem at hand and the nuances required to make their efforts a success. 

“The business has continued to grow from strength to strength and is clearly becoming more critical to the end customer as it matures. We see a future where every lawyer has a Josef work station at their fingertips. From the talent they’re hiring to the partnerships they’re brokering, they’re solving big challenges incredibly well.”