Stockholm-based AI-powered legaltech startup Leya raises funding round led by Benchmark

This news was covered on Friday March 29 in an extra edition of the daily Swedish Tech News PRO newsletter.

Update May 16: The round was officially announced today. It was indeed led by Benchmark, but contrary to the initial rumor, labeled as "seed", not Series A.

Leya, a Stockholm-based startup offering an AI assistant for lawyers, has reportedly raised a Series A funding round from renowned San Francisco-based VC firm Benchmark ahead of this week's Y Combinator Demo day, according to a report from Newcomer. No further details are known right now, but will likely be announced soon.

Leya was founded last year, initially under the name Judilica, by Max Junestrand August Erséus and Sigge Labor. In June 2023, the company was announced as participant in the Stockholm School of Economics' (SSE) Business Lab incubator. Shortly after, Leya got selected for the Y Combinator Winter 2024 batch, thereby also securing $500K in funding.

Leya raised an additional, undisclosed amount from angel investors Erik Engellau Nilsson – former CEO of the Norrsken Foundation and now of Norrsken Launcher – and Joel Hellermark, founder and CEO of Stockholm-based AI-powered personalized learning platform for businesses Sana.

Even though Leya has not announced a formal seed funding round, this fresh capital injection is reported to be a Series A, if Newcomer's sources are correct. A possible explanation for that is that Leya already may have found product-market-fit, despite being only one year old: The company's co-founder and CEO Max Junestrand recently pitched at the Tech Arena conference in Stockholm (and won). At the beginning of the pitch, he rushed on stage explaining that he was almost late, because "he had just sold for another $100K". So business already seems to be going quite well.

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