Clara closes $2M SEED round to standardise and automate global legal practices for startups: Exclusive Q&A with CEO Patrick Rogers
Clara has successfully raised a $2,000,000 round of seed funding. The financing comes from a consortium of international investors including Techstars, 500 Startups, Wamda Capital, VentureSouq, Delta Partners, Shorooq Investments and Dubai Angel Investors.
Clara is solving the pain points associated with startup law across the globe through a unique hybrid model that seamlessly blends the efficiency of a SaaS platform with the human expertise of a law firm.
The Clara platform automates many of the repetitive tasks lawyers currently charge for, including drafting agreements and educating founders on key legal topics. The conversational software teaches founders about the gaps in their startup’s legal structure and guides them through the process to address these gaps.
Clara also automates the creation of cap tables and due diligence summaries and builds data rooms to present a startup’s entire legal structure in a single visual, so legal due diligence will be performed by investors and their lawyers in a fraction of the time it currently takes. When startups need assistance on bespoke matters, such as negotiating a round of financing or incorporating a company, Clara provides on-demand access to a curated marketplace of startup-friendly legal service providers and company registration agents.
For venture capital firms, accelerators and incubators, Clara offers a powerful portfolio management tool providing due diligence data in real time and offering investors the ability to run analytics on their investments. Clara is running pilot programmes this summer with a range of channel partners, including two global accelerators: 500 Startups and Techstars.
The $2,000,000 seed round will be used to build out Clara’s tech, design and content creation teams and to support international expansion across the key international jurisdictions through which venture capital is deployed globally.
MAGNiTT sat down with Clara's co-founder & CEO Patrick Rogers who shared some amazing insights:
Q: How was the experience running through the Techstars accelerator program? What benefits did you get from it?
A: The program was intense and effective. We were forced to stress-test our assumptions about the Clara model and ended up pivoting from a pure tech play to our present hybrid model, which combines the best of machine efficiency and human expertise.
Q: How can a regional startup practically benefit from using Clara in the short run? Are you fully functional already?
A: Clara partners, the law firm under the Clara umbrella specialising in vc financings, is currently assisting a number of regional startups with their capital raising efforts. The Clara tech platform will launch to the public in early Q4 but regional startups are welcome to apply at https://www.Clara.Co/ to participate in our preview release which will launch ahead of the full public release.
Q: What do you hope this will provide to the regional ecosystem that you have seen missing previously?
A: The regional startup ecosystem suffers from a lack of standardisation of legal processes and founders are insufficiently educated on legal matters. This results in a huge waste of time and money in dealing with startup legals. Clara is going to change this.
Q: Why did you take the decision to set up in London as well as the UAE?
A: Clara was born in the UAE but the pain points we are addressing are felt across the global startup ecosystem. London is a logical headquarters for us given the concentration of startups, vc firms and accelerators based there, combined with the fact that London has become the World leader in the legaltech space. We've already started to build out our London-based team and will continue to do so as the year progresses.
Clara was founded in 2018 and the company graduated from Techstars earlier this year. Applications to participate in Clara’s preview release, which will run in advance of the product launch in October 2019, can be found at https://clara.co.