My Learned Friend wins £60k angel investment
A NEW legal research website has won financial backing from a software entrepreneur turned business angel.
My Learned Friend directors Rick Yates and Chelsea Bond will use the £60,000 from investor Divyesh Lakhani to advance the marketing of their product, which they hope will shake up the legal research sector.
The pair were put in touch with Mr Lakhani through the Greater Manchester Business Growth Hub’s Access to Finance service.
The concept of My Learned Friend is simple – to save the profession time and money. The website and free app provide lawyers with an enquiry specific starting point for their research so they can go directly to the case law and legislation they need, instead of trawling though hundreds of search results.
Subscribers also become part of the Learned Friend community, allowing them to create a personal profile, offer their own starting point contributions, build a professional contact network and contribute to a live and relevant database for the industry.
Mr Yates and Miss Bond had already built the initial website when they were introduced to the North West Business Angels network by the Business Growth Hub’s A2F advisor Graham Niven. After pitching their idea in December, they secured the funding from Mr Lakhani, whose career includes the sale of his advanced computer technology company Codework Limited to Altimate Group in 2010.
He is now a director in My Learned Friend and is working closely with the company to grow the website’s capability and reach.
Mr Yates said: “We created My Learned Friend because we wanted to make the task of legal research quicker and easier and to bring the legal community together to create a great research resource. When we pitched to the Angels we had already invested £12,000 ourselves and had worked with eight law schools around the UK to create the starting point database.
“We were looking for additional investment to bring My Learned Friend to market and to allow us to fund a full launch programme this year. We were enormously lucky to meet Divyesh Lakhani at the North West Business Angels event and his investment, faith in us and knowledge of our market, has been invaluable and will continue to be as we grow.”
Access to Finance adviser Graham Niven said: “My Learned Friend is a great example of how A2F can help businesses. Rick and Chelsea already had a fantastic business that was ready to go live and a very attractive investment opportunity. It has low overhead costs, a current position of first mover advantage and really taps into the thirst for tech based innovation and money saving solutions in the legal sector.”
