Legaltech of MEIs, Rocket Lawyer sees Brazilian market passing European

Startup contracts platform should start operation in two other Latin American countries

Almost a year after arriving in Brazil in beta, Rocket Lawyers is officially opening its doors. Founded in Silicon Valley by lawyer Charley Moore, the platform wants to reduce bureaucracy and make contracts, legal documents and digital signatures cheaper for MEIs, SMEs and individuals. Here, the platform found a market that should, in the short term, surpass the size of the business in Europe — where it operates in France, Spain, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

Here, the platform debuts with three services: digital signature, contract templates and answering legal questions. The cost is R$ 79.90 per month and can be canceled at any time. Soon, it should also launch an interface with notaries for authenticity and registration services, upon payment of notary fees, all within the platform. In the global operation, there are already almost 40 million recurring users – most of them individuals.

“Many people in Brazil still don’t know that they can get legal help online. Even so, it is our fastest growing operation. If you think about the US or Europe, it took us four or five years to gain traction and educate the consumer we have here today,” Mark Edwards, the company’s global product leader, told Pipeline. “Brazil is a huge market for small businesses and it is very bureaucratic. So we found a lot of demand”, adds Michel Cury, the general manager of Rocket Lawyer in Latin America.

During the testing phase, four of the five most sought-after contract models were enterprise solutions. With the exception of documents for renting real estate, a demand from individuals, the platform registered a great interest from recurring users in service provision arrangements, employment contracts, powers of attorney and social contract.

The United States is still the main market, responsible for 90% of the operation. Last year, Rocket Lawyer raised a $233 million round led by Vista Credit Partners for international expansion. For the next year, the company plans to launch the operation in two other countries in Latin America. The objective is to explore bureaucratic markets and complex legislation in which the population has low access to the legal system.

“The law is for everyone. But in Brazil alone we have something around 130 million people without access to legal processes because it is complex and expensive. Many Brazilians are unable to regularize their private life, such as marriage, divorce, death certificate, probate, property ownership. All this works until it no longer works. If you don’t have a document to prove it, you’ll have a problem”, analyzes Argentine Rafael Steinhauser, president of the platform’s board in the region.

Brazil had already caught the attention of Charley Moore in 2016. But after spending a season in the country, assessing the maturity of the market, he decided to postpone the launch of the operation. After the pandemic, with the advancement of digitalization in the sector and greater consumer acceptance of the solutions, however, a Latin hub began to make sense. Next year, Rocket Lawyer expects to receive one million monthly visitors to the Brazilian site, which offers a connection to lawyers and a frequently asked questions section.

Source: Value Pipeline