Summary: Zapproved, with a $20 million investment and the acquisition of eCloud Collect, will be offering new software services to its clients.
Zapproved, a Hillsboro, Oregon based legal services firm, announced a new product at a legal trade show in New York this morning, according to the Portland Business Journal.
Last summer, Zapproved landed a $20 million investment from K1 Investment Management. In addition, eCloud Collect, a Los Angeles company, was acquired by Zapproved.
Last year, Xerox expanded its e-discovery services.
Since that point, Zapproved has integrated eCloud’s technology into its products and will be launching Z-Discovery Platform, which is a series of cloud-based software. The software will support corporate legal departments as their staff and attorneys preserve and analyze information that may be needed in legal proceedings.
CEO Monica Enand said, “Once a company reasonably anticipates litigation it can’t destroy evidence related to a case. What’s new in the world is there is an explosion of data and the growth of big data and splintering of that into mobile and cloud data that really created a massive change in how companies deal with this obligation. The way we deal with it now is unsustainable.”
Z-Discovery will provide a platform for placing legal holds, or retaining certain documents, and data collected remotely will be analyzed using the eCloud technology.
How does “legal tech” affect practicing law?
Typically, when a startup acquires a multi-million dollar investment, it quickly lets the news out to the public. Other times, the arrangement is revealed in federal filings.
The 2014 deal that Zapproved entered was structured in such a manner that a filing was not mandatory. Enand added that she has been focused on building the company instead of touting its investments.
Enand commented, “I’m not a big fan of raising more money than you need. We have been growing at a great clip. We have great metrics and customer retention.”
Enand added that she has also received inbound requests for financing. However, she said she has ignored most of them, instead depending on small rounds that were raised initially and creating a positive cash flow.
In 2011, the company made the cash flow benchmark.
Enand began exploring additional funding when customers began asking for more from the company. Enand said, “I finally sat down with my executive team. The customers were really struggling with other parts of the workflow and they were asking us to help them expand. This was the right time to expand the product line.”
An e-discovery center has been created at the Cumberland School of Law.
After the investment and the acquisition, the company’s number of employees grew to 50. It is headquartered in Hillsboro and a small group works in Los Angeles as well. Several jobs are posted on its website.
In 2015, Zapproved plans to move into a new office in the Pearl.
Zapproved’s current clients are mostly large corporations, many of which are commonly known, according to Enand. She said many are from the consumer goods, fast food, airline, and automotive industries.
Source: Portland Business Journal
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