Hambro Perks

10/01/2023

Hambro Perks Growth Debt Fund announces £2 million investment in legal tech platform Apperio

Hambro Perks Growth Debt Fund announces £2 million investment in legal tech platform Apperio

London, 10 January 2023 – Following its first investment in November 2022, Hambro Perks today announces its second investment from the newly launched Hambro Perks Growth Debt fund (“the Fund”). The Fund has invested £2 million in growth funding to Apperio Limited (“Apperio”), a London-based B2B legal technology platform. Apperio received backing from the Fund to help drive the continued growth of the business.

Founded in 2013 (known then as Legal Tender), Apperio has developed a proprietary software platform that enables its clients, such as large law firms, private equity houses and corporates, to view and control external legal spend in real-time. Apperio’s software can connect with the existing systems and data source of law firms and automate the collection, processing, and visualisation of legal spend. This funding round is part of a wider $7 million growth round, with participation from existing investors Molten, IQ Capital, Notion, NextLaw, and new investors Volution and Hambro Perks. The announcement today brings the total funding Apperio has raised to date to $19.9 million.

The deal was led by Usman Ali and Ylan Lamour of Hambro Perks’ newly launched fund which supports UK and European high-growth scale-up companies with non-dilutive growth capital, focusing on B2B SaaS and IP-rich advanced manufacturing companies. The £100 million pan-European fund recently had its first close and comprises a team of five highly experienced venture debt practitioners.

Usman Ali, Partner in the Growth Debt Fund at Hambro Perks, said:

“Apperio has continued to grow its top-line revenue in the last couple of years by successfully seeking partnerships with companies with large legal budgets. Apperio’s proprietary technology connects directly to law firms’ practice management systems to provide a live view of all matters, including unbilled work-in-progress and invoiced jobs. Unlike eBilling solutions, which allows limited visibility and often lags real time data, Apperio provides instant visibility of both historic and unbilled legal spend data. We strongly believe that the business has tremendous growth potential, and our latest funding package, alongside the new equity, will help catalyse this. It’s an exciting time for Apperio, and we look forward to seeing how the business evolves and expands into new markets.”

Nicholas d’Adhemar, Founder and CEO of Apperio, said:

“Legal costs have grown this year and many in-house lawyers report they anticipate costs to grow further next year as well. Certainly, inflation is a factor, but business today is simply more complicated because there are more compliance, regulatory and legal risks than ever. This is driving up demand for legal services and by extension legal costs. The visibility and transparency the Apperio legal spend management platform provides is a proven way for in-house legal teams to control costs – and does so in a way that strengthens their relationships with their external legal advisors and law firms. We are thrilled to expand our partnership with Usman and the team at Hambro Perks and rely on their support as we continue this journey of helping legal departments control costs and bring greater transparency to the business of law.”