In an attempt to invest in India’s emerging legal tech start-up ecosystem, Delhi-NCR-based LegalPay has launched a $2 million fund called Justice and Inclusion (JAI).
The fund will be utilised for technological advancements in India’s legal sector and to speed up legal processes through newly evolved products.
The company has created an investment committee to run the fund swiftly. Headed by entrepreneur-turned-investor and philanthropist Ashwini Kakkar, the committee comprises LegalPay’s chief executive officer (CEO) Kundan Shahi and chief operating officer Kashish Grover as well as Ojasvi Babbar, CEO of Amity Incubation Centre.
Additionally, Ambarish Gupta, Founder of Basis Vectors and ex-founder of Knowlarity, is the anchor lead of the Fund.
Talking about this, Shahi said, "The emergence of the start-up boom in the Indian market attracted investors from all strata of society, leading to the creation of various investment funds. However, legal innovation is often neglected in the sector, leading to the slow progress of legal innovation in India.
LegalPay is a tech-focused litigation start-up that is aiming to democratise investment in alternative investment products in the legal domain, including insolvency financing and litigation funding. Its specialty lies in asset-backed fixed-income and legal financing products with internal rates of returns that range from 18 per cent to 30 per cent.
Shahi stated that through JAI, LegalPay will invest between Rs 25 lakh to Rs 50 lakh in over 30 start-ups over the next two years. “We have observed the inability of start-ups that work for society to attract substantial capital to solve legal and socially inclusive problems. The fund aims to solve this by enabling such businesses to leverage our network and technological capabilities that we have developed over the last few years," he also added.