Legal tech startup Apperio Ltd. has raised £1.7 million ($2.4 million) in seed funding in a round led by Notion Capital that included NextLaw Labs and IQ Capital.

Based in the United Kingdom, Apperio offers a real time, smart-analytics enabled legal fee tracking platform that delivers law firms and businesses real-time transparency on legal fees that is accurate and meaningful, while also being able to identify areas for improved efficiency.

The idea behind the company comes from Founder and former lawyer Nicholas d’Adhemar, who experienced deals firsthand that were completed but were then followed by months of disputes over fees and invoices, often due to the outdated invoicing and billing information systems.

Apperio is delivering a system that regularly shares fee information between law firms and their clients, significantly improving working relationship by making sure there are fewer surprises.

The company won a London Seedcamp tech accelerator award in 2013 and now has partnerships with 17 of the top 100 UK law firms and has monitored over £20 million ($28.4 million) in legal fees through its system.

“I am incredibly excited to be investing in Apperio. I have thought for some time now that the legal sector is ripe for disruption with the right technology and Apperio is well placed to spearhead this,” Notion Capital Partner Ian Milbourn said in a statement sent to SiliconANGLE. “The time has come for transparency in legal fees, and law firms and their clients are recognizing this. In addition the analytics that the platform provides are invaluable and enable law firms to greatly improve their behavioral and financial performance.”

Archaic market

While there are some larger legal firms in the United Kingdom, the market is still primarily run via smaller practices, with big international firms finding it difficult to operate, as recently shown in the case of personal injury law firm Slater & Gordon.

The UK (and indeed Commonwealth) system of requiring not a lawyer but a solicitor and barrister should a case go to court adds an extra level of complication into the system, with legal fees, particularly for a client, ending up being highly complex.

Apperio says that its platform equips law firms and businesses with the real-time fee data and tools needed to accurately price, track and assess legal matters, which on paper sounds like a promising product.

It’s not clear how much Apperio has raised to date as the amount of its Angel round was not disclosed, but previous investors include Seedcamp and a number of individual investors.

The company said it would use the new funding to grow their core teams to further strengthen products and support clients.

Image credit: Apperio.