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Valla

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Valla is a DIY legal platform for consumers

182%
 - 
Funded 26 Mar 2024
£350,003 target
£640,604 from 518 investors
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Business overview

Location Glasgow, United Kingdom
Social media
Website valla.uk
Sectors SaaS/PaaS Digital Mixed B2B/B2C
Company number SC658140
Incorporation date 24 Mar 2020
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Investment summary

Type Equity
Valuation (pre-money) £4M
Equity offered 13.75%
Tax relief

EIS

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Business highlights

  • 10xed sales from 2022-23*
  • Over £130,000 in sales in 2023
  • Rated 'Excellent' on Trustpilot
  • Named “One to watch” by Sifted Magazine
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Key features

  • Secondary Market
  • Nominee investment min. £20.40 +
  • Direct investment min. £20,000.00 +

Idea

Introduction

Every year, 7.5 million adults in the UK face a legal problem, but too often, people can’t afford to pay a lawyer. In 2017, 63% of UK adults reported that they found legal services too expensive.

As lawyers have become more unaffordable, huge numbers of people are forced to navigate the complex legal system on their own. According to Ministry of Justice data, self-representation in Employment Tribunals rose 260% since 2016, and now around 40% of family law cases have no lawyer on either side.

Our AI-powered legal platform is built to solve this problem. Using Valla, consumers can collect evidence, manage their case, and connect with lawyers for fixed-priced advice.

Our customers have rated us ‘Excellent’ on Trustpilot.

In a recent survey, Valla received a high Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 57, way above the UK legal sector average of -54.

Substantial accomplishments to date

Since launching our platform in April 2022, we have already:

- Grown to over 8,000 users and over 100,000 social media followers
- 10xed our sales from 2022-23*
- Selected to work with UK legal regulators in the prestigious LawTech Sandbox in 2022
- Participated in “legal unbundling” pilots with the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Law Society of England and Wales.
-Been named “One to watch” by Sifted Magazine

*based on unaudited management accounts

Our founder and CEO Danae Shell has also been:

- Awarded as a “Disruptive Innovator” by AccelerateHer in 2022
- Appointed to the LawScotTech Advisory Board for the Law Society of Scotland

Valla is backed by a number of individual and institutional investors, including:

- Tom Blomfield, founder of GoCardless and Monzo
- Gary Turner, former Managing Director of Xero
- Kayee Cheung, former VP of Commercial at both Spotify and Skyscanner
- HERmesa
- Ascension Ventures
- Investing Women
- Resolution Foundation

Monetisation strategy

Our B2C revenue comes from purchases of legal templates, fixed-price legal advice, and educational materials. These are “add-ons” to our freemium case management platform for consumers, which offers evidence and case tracking throughout the lifecycle of a legal case. The price of our add-ons range from £10 for a basic template to £500+ for one-to-one legal support.

Many of our customers buy multiple products over the span of their legal issue, which can last for many months or even years. On average, 26% of our monthly sales came from customers who had been using the platform for over six months.

Our Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) has been consistently growing since launch, now at £91 per user.

Valla customers find us primarily through organic channels, in particular organic search, word of mouth, and organic social media. Valla has over 98,000 followers on TikTok, 800 subscribers on YouTube, and our Founder Danae Shell holds weekly “live” sessions to directly answer questions.

Use of proceeds

We are using this investment to focus on three key areas: accelerating our D2C growth, doubling down on our Generative AI capabilities, and adding B2B2C channels.

•D2C growth: SEO and word of mouth are already two of Valla’s best channels, and we plan to accelerate both by investing in more PR activity, highlighting Tribunal wins and success stories from our customers to the press.

•Generative AI: Valla uses cutting-edge Generative AI to reduce case preparation time, to detect critical legal issues and to remove admin work. We’ve managed to double the case management product efficiency by implementing an AI-augmented process in comparison to a traditional process. With further investment we can improve this efficiency and bring our AI to new areas of law.

•B2B2C: We are targeting bundling Valla into insurance and banking products in 2024, reaching potentially millions of new users. Additional funding will enable us to grow our team to reach these new markets.

Key Information

Share Class

The company has two share classes, ordinary and deferred shares. All investors in this round will be receiving ordinary shares. The deferred shares have no rights or commercial value and have not been included in the fully diluted equity of the company for the purposes of determining share price.

Ordinary shares have voting and dividend rights, and any proceeds payable to ordinary shareholders on a return of capital (exit / liquidation etc) will be distributed as follows:

First, each investor will receive an amount equal to their investment (or where not enough funds to do so, a pro-rata amount based on their portion of the total investment received by the company);
If funds remain once investments have been returned, where any investor has received an amount less than what they would have received had the funds been distributed pro-rata to shareholdings, they will receive a top-up amount; and
Any residual proceeds will be distributed pro-rata to shareholdings.

Direct Investment

A portion of the investment reflected in this campaign was received by the Company in the 6 months prior to the launch of the investment round on Seedrs and the Company has started putting this to use.

Investor Perks

Please note that any discounts, rewards and/or offers listed by a company in its campaign are subject to the terms and conditions applied by that company. It is the company’s responsibility to honour such discounts, rewards and/or offers and Seedrs does not take any responsibility for them.

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Only shareholders can access this page

If you successfully purchase a share lot of this business, you will be granted access.

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Only shareholders can access this page

If you successfully purchase a share lot of this business, you will be granted access.

Buy shares

Only shareholders can access this page

If you successfully purchase a share lot of this business, you will be granted access.

Buy shares

Only shareholders can access this page

If you successfully purchase a share lot of this business, you will be granted access.

Buy shares

Investing involves risks, including loss of capital, illiquidity, lack of dividends and dilution, and should be done only as part of a diversified portfolio. Please read the Risk Warnings before investing. Investments should only be made by investors who understand these risks. Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and is subject to change in future.

This webpage has been approved as a financial promotion by Seedrs Limited (trading as Republic Europe) ("Republic Europe"), which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority with firm reference number 550317. It is not intended to be a promotion of any individual investment opportunity and is not an offer to the public. The summary information provided about investment opportunities on this webpage is intended solely to demonstrate the types of investments available on the Republic Europe platform, and any investment decision should be made on the basis of the full campaign. Full campaigns are available to investors who have become authorised to invest on the Republic Europe platform. All investment activities take place within the United Kingdom, and any person resident outside the United Kingdom should ensure that they are not subject to any local regulations before investing.

Republic Europe does not make investment recommendations to you. No communications from Republic Europe, through this website or any other medium, should be construed as an investment recommendation. Further, nothing on this website shall be considered an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any security to any person in any jurisdiction to whom or in which such offer, solicitation or sale is unlawful. Republic Europe does not provide legal, financial or tax advice of any kind. If you have any questions with respect to legal, financial or tax matters relevant to your interactions with Republic Europe, you should consult a professional adviser.

Tax Relief (SEIS)

This business is eligible for SEIS relief - providing qualifying investors with income tax relief of 50% of their investment and certain other tax reliefs. Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and is subject to change in future. Click to learn more.

Tax Relief (EIS)

This business is eligible for EIS relief - providing qualifying investors with income tax relief of 30% of their investment and certain other tax reliefs. Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and is subject to change in future. Click to learn more.

Valuation (pre-money)

Valuation rounded from £3,995,993

This is the fully-diluted pre-money valuation of the business (i.e. before the new investment comes in and including issued options and other equity interests). In contrast, the post-money valuation is based on inclusion of the new investment in the value.

It is calculated as the pre-money valuation plus the amount of new investment. e.g. If Company A is ascribed a pre-money valuation of £1,200,000 by prospective investors investing £300,000, its post-money valuation is £1,500,000.

The investee business is responsible for setting its own valuation, it has not been prescribed by Seedrs.

Pitch type

Investing in a regular equity campaign is the simplest and most common way to invest in a startup. You decide which business you want to invest in, and if the campaign hits its funding target then you will become one of their shareholders. As the company becomes more valuable, so do your shares; allowing you the opportunity to share in the future success of the business.

Learn more about pitch type on Seedrs

Equity Offered

The equity offered is the percentage of the company’s shares being issued in return for the amount of investment raised.

When the amount raised is less than 100%, the equity offered is based on the target raise. Once the company has raised over 100% it is based on the total raised.

In some scenarios, entrepreneurs may accept additional direct investment after closing their Seedrs campaign. Provided this is within 6 months of the closing and on the same terms, we do not typically offer pre-emption rights on that extra investment (where you have the opportunity to invest again to maintain your percentage shareholding).

Learn more about investing and pre-emption rights.

Nominee investment

This shows if you are able to choose, when making an investment, that you be represented by, and your shareholding be managed by, the Nominee investment.

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Custodian

If you invest in this Campaign, Seedrs will act as Custodian rather than provide our standard nominee service. This is due to the fact that the business is not directly involved in the share sale and Seedrs will not benefit from any rights under a shareholder agreement. As a result, Seedrs will handle administrative tasks as we do normally, but you will not have information or voting rights, updates from the business, preemption on future fundraising, or ongoing support about business trading activity.

Learn more about Custodian here

Secondary market

This shows if the business has opted-in or opted-out of allowing its shares to be bought and sold on the secondary market.

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Direct investment

This is an option to invest and hold shares 'directly' in the company (rather than via the Nominee investment). This option is only available to those investing over the threshold amount, which is determined by the fundraising company.

If you choose to hold your shares directly, you will be responsible for any contractual or administrative arrangements with the company you are investing in.

Find out more

Payment options

We are not able to accept card payments for investments into this sector. You can pay for your investment by creating a bank transfer, using funds in your investment account or create a Pay by Bank payment. Your investment will only be completed once the funds have reached our account.

Business Involvement

This Campaign offers shares for sale in business that is not directly involved in this Campaign or the sale. As a result, the Campaign and post-investment experience, including investor rights, will differ from a business-led campaign on Seedrs. Most notably, the business will not engage with investors in the discussion forums both during and after the sale or provide any updates to investors.

Learn more here

Payment options

We are not able to accept Pay by Bank payments for investments into this sector. You can pay for your investment with a card payment, by creating a bank transfer or by using funds in your investment account. Your investment will only be completed once the funds have reached our account.

Drawdowns

This campaign offers the ability to pay for an investment by drawdowns.

Security Token

A security token is a digital asset that represents ownership or other rights. It is a digital form of traditional investments. In the future, you may be able to trade your investment through compatible exchanges.

Warning

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None of the information in constitutes part of the campaign and it has not been approved or reviewed by Seedrs.

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