The archive · Developer & Business Tools · Financial decision · 2017
Atrium LTS raises $10.5M from nearly 100 investors to bring software to legal work
Justin Kan's legal-tech startup Atrium LTS closed a $10.5M party round led by General Catalyst to build software for the repeatable parts of legal work.
Atrium LTS
What the business is
Atrium LTS (Legal Technology Services) is a startup founded by Justin Kan to improve how corporate legal work is delivered — lawyers plus software that tracks deals and streamlines repeatable processes for clients.
Starting capital：$10.5M initial round led by General Catalyst, with nearly 100 institutional and angel investors (closed June 2017).
How it started
Justin Kan made his name founding Justin.tv, which spawned Twitch (sold to Amazon), and as an angel in companies like Cruise (sold to GM). As a power user of legal services for over a decade — through founding startups, fundraising and advising at Y Combinator — he was frustrated by how little technology law firms used, and asked why firms did not track deals with project-management software clients could see. In early 2017 he assembled a team under the name Atrium LTS; TechCrunch reported in April 2017 that he was raising about $10 million in an initial round led by General Catalyst.
What happened
On 2017-06-15 Kan confirmed the round closed at $10.5 million — one of the biggest party rounds TechCrunch's reporter said he had ever seen, with nearly 100 institutional and angel investors including 500 Startups, First Round, Founders Fund, Greylock, GGV, NEA, SV Angel and angels like Sam Altman, Emmett Shear and John Doerr. The breadth was strategic, not social: Kan said Atrium was building software to improve the delivery of legal work, so the investors doubled as a funnel of companies and individuals who could become customers as the firm chased product-market fit. Kan even shared a screenshot showing Atrium using its own tools during the fundraising; details of the technology and how it would be offered to customers were still to come, with some regulatory issues being ironed out.
No ending yet — it is still running.
Background
Justin Kan built Justin.tv, which spawned Twitch (sold to Amazon), and made angel bets like Cruise (sold to GM). After more than a decade as a startup founder and investor paying law firms, he was frustrated that firms barely used software — no project management clients could see, no tools for repeatable work — and in 2017 he started Atrium LTS to fix the delivery of corporate legal work.
TechCrunch reported in April 2017 that Atrium was raising about $10 million in an initial round led by General Catalyst. On 2017-06-15 Kan confirmed the round closed at $10.5 million in what the reporter called one of the biggest party rounds he had seen: nearly 100 institutional and angel investors, from 500 Startups, First Round, Founders Fund, Greylock, GGV and NEA to angels including Sam Altman, Emmett Shear and John Doerr.
The many-investor strategy was the point: beyond capital, Kan said, it bought buy-in and a funnel of companies and individuals who could become Atrium customers as it pursued product-market fit. He shared a screenshot of Atrium using its own tools during the fundraising — an early demonstration of the software for tracking and delivering legal work that he promised to reveal more of, with some regulatory details still being ironed out.
What has to be true
- Kan had lived the problem: a decade of founding and funding startups made him a power user of legal services who saw how little technology firms used.
- The insight was that corporate legal work splits into art and repeatable process — only the repeatable half needs software, which made the target tractable.
- Raising from nearly 100 investors turned the round into a customer funnel, since most of them were startups that would need legal services themselves.
- The team mixed legal insiders like Orrick's Augie Rakow and AttorneyFee founder BeBe Chueh with engineers like AWS alum Chris Smoak, attacking the market from both credibility and product.
What can be applied
When your customers are startups, a round of nearly 100 investors is also distribution: every check bought a potential user's attention before the product existed.
Aftermath
As of 2017-06-15 Atrium LTS had closed its $10.5M round and was in the product-development phase: Kan described building software to improve the delivery of legal work, cited regulatory issues still being ironed out, and promised more details on the technology and how it would begin being offered to customers. The company was already using its own tools internally during the fundraising. No later outcome was established in the sources for this entry.
Sources
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