There is downward pressure on legal fees as organisations (including corporate and private equity firms) try to gain control of their legal spend. Fees charged by outside legal service providers for transactions frequently exceed the initial estimate given at the outset. Having previously worked in both a law firm and a private equity firm, Nicholas d’Adhemar (Nino) recognised that, given the pace and intensity of legal work which is often required, the corporate or private equity firms lost track of just how much billable time the law firm had booked. Nino knew there was a better way, and so he founded Apperio. Apperio provides in-house legal teams with control and visibility of their live legal spend through streamlined invoice approval, real-time spend visibility and detailed spend analysis.
There are a number of things that excited us about Apperio – first, its proprietary SaaS offering that is aimed at solving the real issue of legal spend by large organisations. Apperio’s software platform aggregates and analyses both the historical and current legal spend, including law firm work-in-progress (WIP) and accruals. It also provides streamlined invoice approval workflow and a comprehensive view of legal spending on a single dashboard by connecting directly to the practice management systems of law firms. As a result, in-house general counsels have a unified, real-time view of the relevant fee data across all of their firm/ by teams / by business units, meaning complete control of the legal spend ahead of receiving an invoice from the law firm. Apperio’s software is currently used by more than 60 in-house legal teams and is integrated into over 250 law firms. Apperio also provides law firms with a truly collaborative platform enabling them to provide their clients with immediate transparency of the value they provide, fostering stronger relationships and driving better time recording hygiene.
Second, the management team especially the founder (Nino) who has had the first-hand experience of working in a law firm and a private equity firm and could understand the pain points of both. Nino is supported by David Eldridge and Dominic Aelberry, both of whom are seasoned executives.
Third, the growth potential – the business has grown significantly over the last few years and is expecting to continue this rapid growth.
Finally, the continued support from the institutional investors (Molten, Notion Capital, IQ Capital, Next Law Ventures and Volution) who, over the years, have contributed significant capital to the business.
The team at Apperio impressed us and we are very excited to join the growth investment round alongside the other investors. We look forward to working with Nino and his management team and seeing how far they can take the business.