Ghent, 3 February 2025 - Belgian tech company Emma Legal has raised EUR 1.6mio of capital from London-based fund 6 Degrees Capital & Belgian Entourage Capital. Emma Legal is a young technology company focused on automating legal due diligence in Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A). A manual process that typically takes weeks, sometimes months, Emma Legal's platform converts it into an analysis of a few hours. 6 Degrees Capital and Entourage Capital are providing a funding round to further expand Emma Legal. Today, several law firms and consulting firms specialising in M&A in Belgium and Europe are using the first version of the platform.
Emma Legal's platform focuses on automating legal due diligence, a crucial and necessary step in mergers and acquisitions that involves thorough research into the legal aspects of a company or transaction. The analysis aims to identify potential risks and liabilities by analysing all contracts, intellectual property rights, pending litigation, compliance with laws and regulations, and other legal issues that may affect the value or feasibility of a proposed acquisition or investment. Emma Legal's advantage is that it can deliver this analysis faster, with a high degree of accuracy
Emma Legal's founders are serial entrepreneurs Rick Van Esch and Pieter Buteneers. Together, they previously built out Chatlayer, a company focused on developing AI chatbots. Chatlayer was acquired by international tech player Sinch in March 2020.
“The due diligence process has barely evolved in the last 30 years and remains a necessary and very time-intensive and thus expensive part within an acquisition or investment,” says Rick van Esch, Founding-CEO at Emma Legal. “As entrepreneurs ourselves, we went through the acquisition process several times as buyers and sellers and noticed that there is a lot of room for improvement. The takeover market is on the eve of significant growth due to lower interest rates and expected deregulation from the US. We are also responding to the trend of acquisitions becoming more international and therefore more complex. In addition, the continued rise of private equity makes companies change ownership several times in their life cycle. Now is also the perfect moment to come to the market with a powerful innovation. This is why we also have great ambitions to become part of the M&A world outside Belgium and Europe.”
“Emma Legal offers both companies and lawyers a powerful AI-based solution that can immediately save an enormous amount of time,” says Pieter Buteneers, Founding-CTO of Emma Legal. “Thanks to the recent evolutions in Large Language Models and certainly since the arrival of affordable models such as GPT 4, there is nothing technologically in the way anymore. When you combine this with relevant acquisition and investment expertise, it really makes a difference for our clients. The result is a platform that guarantees more certainty, more accuracy and consequently less risk, and that in a fraction of the time. Legal Due Diligence thus becomes less of an obstacle and that gives more time to work on the substance. It is precisely where the law firm can add the most value with its expertise.”
Emma Legal raised capital of 1.6 million euros from venture capital funds 6 Degrees Capital and Entourage Capital. These funds will help Emma Legal to take the company to further develop its product offerings and expand its commercial presence . Emma Legal expects to raise a larger round of capital within one or two years.
“Emma Legal brings a solution to the market that answers the needs of a lot of companies actively doing M&A and business lawyers themselves,” says Lucas Stoops at 6 Degrees Capital. “With their platform, they not only deliver a powerful technology, but also offer their clients a very user-friendly interface. It is the perfect timing for this innovation: with their solution, Emma Legal offers a more accurate result, and this is highly automated, while the adviser remains in control. In a world where M&A is increasingly happening across national borders, a multilingual platform that quickly and automatically asks the right legal questions is a huge asset to deliver quick analysis. It is essential for guiding the complex transactions of today and tomorrow.”
“Besides the solution and the technology, Emma Legal also has a very complementary team that we believe in,” says Pieterjan Bouten at Entourage Capital. “Both founders have already built and scaled successful businesses in the past. Rick and Pieter have been on both sides of the table of acquisitions process several times. They understand its challenges very well and can now through the rapid rise of AI and an innovative product deliver tailor-made solutions to their clients.”
Emma Legal is a Belgian technology company whose mission is to help lawyers work better through the use of AI technology. Emma Legal's platform focuses on automating legal due diligence in M&A transactions. The company was founded by Rick Van Esch (CEO) and Pieter Buteneers (CTO) and has 6 Degrees Capital and Entourage Capital as investors.