Rocket Lawyer, a US-based online legal services company, has raised $18m in its series D round with the backing of Google Ventures, the US-based search engine’s corporate venturing unit.
Google Ventures was joined by Investor Growth Capital (IGC), the venture capital division of Sweden-based investment firm Investor AB, and venture capital firm August Capital, which led the round.
IGC, in turn led Rocket Lawyer’s $7m series C round in June last year, while legal database Lexis Nexis, a division of publisher Reed Elsevier, funded the $2.1m series B round, in December 2008.
Founded in August 2008, Rocket Lawyer allows users to create customised, downloadable legal documents online and provides links between local attorneys and legal clients. Rocket Lawyer calculates that over 15 million consumers and small business have used its service.
Wesley Chan, partner at Google Ventures, said: "We see a large market opportunity for legal solutions that are easily accessible and affordable to users. Rocket Lawyer’s combination of an intuitive user-driven front-end with a strong technology-based platform uniquely positions the company to scale and deliver the type of ‘wow’ user experience that online customers love."
The funding coincides with Rocket Lawyer’s hiring of Alisa Weiner, formerly of local entertainment website Zvents, as vice president of marketing. David Hornik, a general partner at August Capital, has joined Rocket Lawyer’s board of directors as part of the deal.