Sheffield’s FinLegal raises £2m from Mercia

Sheffield-based FinLegal, which makes software for the legal industry, has raised £2 million in funding to accelerate the growth of its client base internationally.

The investment was made by Mercia Asset Management and its Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II. It is the first South Yorkshire investment for the £660 million fund, launched in March.

FinLegal’s platform is used by the leading claims firms in the UK and Australia, designed for managing class actions or large numbers of similar claims, where a law firm may be acting on behalf of thousands or even millions of claimants.

It enables claimants to engage with lawyers more effectively while allowing law firms to benefit from automation and AI and reduce operating costs. FinLegal says it can enable legal teams to handle up to six times more claims.

The company was founded in 2019 by Steven Shinn, an IT specialist who had been following the news stories about the Post Office group action in the UK and recognised the potential to use automation to make the process more efficient. Since its launch in 2020, the platform has processed over 2 million claims and is now used by the UK’s leading mass claims firm Leigh Day, the Australian market leader Maurice Blackburn and a growing number of mid-market firms in the US.

FinLegal has 25 employees, including three at its US office. It had annual recurring revenue of £1.8 million in the year to April 2024, and increased total revenue to almost £3 million. The latest funding brings the total raised by the company to date to £5 million.

FinLegal’s Shinn said: “The claims market is ripe for a platform like ours. Many claims are run on a no-win no-fee basis and increasingly there are fee caps, so operating costs are critical. Our solution reduces costs, automates but also improves client care and makes it possible to manage claims at a scale which might otherwise not be viable. It has already been adopted by the some of the leading claims firms and this investment will enable us to accelerate our international growth.”