LegalPay launches $2 million fund to invest in emerging legaltech and financial inclusion startups

LegalPay, a third-party litigation funder and interim financier said it has launched a $2 million Justice and Inclusion (JAI) Fund to invest in emerging legaltech and financial inclusion start-ups. The fund will provide equity funding to 30 legal-tech and socially driven fintech start-ups.

The fund’s vision is to promote strong technology development in the current legal framework and speed up the legal processes through innovative legal products and solutions, it said in a statement.

“The emergence of the start-up boom in the Indian market attracted investors from all strata of society, leading to the creation of various investment funds. However, legal innovation is often neglected in the sector, leading to the slow progress of legal innovation in India,” said Kundan Shahi, founder of LegalPay adding that it has observed the inability of start-ups that work for society to attract substantial capital to solve legal and socially inclusive problems.

“The fund aims to solve this by enabling such businesses to leverage our network and technological capabilities that we have developed over the last few years,” Shahi added.
LegalPay has created an investment committee chaired by entrepreneur-turned-investor and global philanthropist Ashwini Kakkar to enable an impartial funding mechanism and the committee also includes Shahi, Kashish Grover, COO of LegalPay, and Ojasvi Babbar, CEO of Amity Incubation Centre.

“Indian legal market is largely unorganised with over $30 billion opportunities for budding start-ups. LegalPay’s success over the last three years in the legal financing market has played a pivotal role in promoting access to justice through financing the legal costs of businesses and individuals. With the launch of the JAI Fund, LegalPay will be contributing enormously towards the development of the legal framework and reducing pressure on the judiciary through innovative legal products,” Kakkar said.

The fund’s anchor lead is Ambarish Gupta, founder of Basis Vectors and ex-founder of Knowlarity who said it would institutionalise capital and promote the development of the ecosystem in the legal-tech market by budding entrepreneurs who are solving problems in the legal market through innovative technology.

LegalPay is a VC-backed fin-tech start-up with support from 9Unicorns, LetsVenture, VentureCatalysts and Amity Innovation Incubator.

Stay on top of technology and startup news that matters. Subscribe to our daily newsletter for the latest and must-read tech news, delivered straight to your inbox.