Episode 26: Nathan Wenzel on the Journey of a Legal Tech Start-up

We headed to Silicon Valley to chat with SimpleLegal founder Nathan Wenzel in Episode 26. Nathan has a great legal tech startup story–from idea to acquisition.

SimpleLegal provides legal operations software to help corporate legal teams run their departments, manage their legal operations and monitor finances. (This type of software is sometimes referred to as ELM software or “enterprise legal management” software.)

The early days of SimpleLegal were spent at Y Combinator, Silicon Valley’s highly respected start up accelerator. The company was one of the first legal tech companies YC accepted. After completing the program, Nathan and his team raised a seed round and then a $10 million Series A round to grow the company.

Fast forward to 2019 and Onit came knocking. Onit is another company providing enterprise software for in-house legal departments and legal ops teams. Onit acquired SimpleLegal in May, 2019.

Nathan talks about his legal tech journey and what it was like to raise money when investors were not as familiar with legal technology companies.

Learn more about SimpleLegal, and be sure to check out their great blog covering legal ops and in-house legal topics. The company also has a great legal ops resource center too.

Technically Legal is hosted by Chad Main, an attorney and the founder of Percipient, a tech-enabled alternative legal services provider.

Episode Credits

Editing and Production: Grant Blackstock

Theme Music: Home Base (Instrumental Version) by TA2MI