"Just a year ago, we faced a gap in the legal tech sector: There were increasing numbers of people wanting to found startups, but the environment wasn't yet ideal. With Legal Tech Colab, we wanted to create an incubator, an accelerator, for these people."
This is how the Bavarian State Minister for Justice described George Eisenreich at the celebration of the one-year anniversary of the “Legal Tech Colab” in the Munich Urban Colab the Initial ideas behind the project, which the Minister of Justice launched together with UnternehmerTUM CEO Helmut Schönenberger. Today, the Colab ecosystem includes major law firms, legal departments of DAX-listed companies, and experts from science, law, business, and technology. The goal is to build Europe's leading hub for technology-based startups in the legal sector.
The numbers show that this approach seems to be working: Last year, thirteen of over 70 interested startups were accepted into the program. Three of these teams received seven-figure seed funding.
"And the interest in Legal Tech Colab continues unabated! Our ecosystem of leading law firms, legal departments of DAX-listed companies, and VCs is growing,"
said Stefan Blenk, Managing Director of the Legal Tech Colab. The program provides founders with support on their path to market readiness and with initial financing. Scholarships and workspaces are also available to teams at all stages. Applications are open to early-stage startups and prospective founders who are developing an innovative and internationally scalable product based on cutting-edge technologies such as AI or blockchain. The core of the business model should have a close connection to the legal sector. In addition to legal tech, this can also include startups in the fields of regtech, tax tech, insurtech, and fintech.
Legal Tech Colab: “How to build a legal tech unicorn”
At the conference marking the company's one-year anniversary, experts from the legal industry and the startup scene discussed the intersection of law and technology and how emerging startups can grow into multi-billion dollar legal tech companies. Academics offered their assessments of legal areas particularly suited to innovative solutions and presented practical examples. Professor Thomas Riehm from the University of Passau, for example, identified significant, untapped startup potential in maintenance law, legal expenses insurance, and digital learning opportunities for students.
Renowned founders such as Nikolaus Volk and Francesco Wiedemann of Kyte and Jorn Vanysacker of Henchman shared insights into their personal success stories and their most important learnings. Celonis founders Bastian Nominacher gave prospective founders, among other things:
“Focus on customer value and persevere – no matter the challenge.”
Finally, to provide a platform for young entrepreneurs, the founders of five startups that are or were part of the Legal Tech Colab funding program had the opportunity to present their solutions:
- Suitcase provides a neutral platform for resolving legal disputes, helping to avoid lengthy and costly legal proceedings.
- Dscript is trying out an online tutoring service for law students. On the platform, instructors can create their lecture materials, and students can read, discuss, and learn them together.
- Working on the automation of data protection KertosIts no-code SaaS solution is designed to connect a company's entire infrastructure to manage personal data and automate the entire data protection process.
- The founders of Silver River With their automation platform, they want to support law firms in the complete processing of their mandates. In the medium term, public administration could also benefit from the solution.
- Certivity With its platform, it aims to simplify the lives of engineers in the automotive industry by digitizing, simplifying, and accelerating the review of regulations.
