Apperio, which created a legal fee tracking platform, has announced a £1.7 million seed funding round led by Notion Capital, with NextLaw Labs and IQ Capital.

The venture funds came together with angel investors to fund Apperio’s software, which it says gives law firms and clients real-time transparency on legal fees.

After winning London tech accelerator Seedcamp in 2013, Apperio secured an initial funding round led by angels including Stephen Chandler, Jan Reichelt and Andy Phillipps.

Within a year of launching the platform Apperio secured ten corporate clients. It has since formed partnerships with 17 of the top 100 UK law firms and monitored more than £20 million in legal fees through its system.

Apperio CEO and founder Nicholas d’Adhemar said: “This investment from such a fantastic syndicate really supports our mission to bring meaningful transparency to the legal industry. With the new funding we will be able to grow our core teams to further strengthen our products and support our clients.”

The latest funding round was led by Notion Capital, a fund focused on high potential businesses in the cloud computing and Software-as-a-Service markets.

Ian Milbourn, partner at Notion said, “I am incredibly excited to be investing in Apperio. I have thought for some time now that the legal sector is ripe for disruption with the right technology and Apperio is well placed to spearhead this.

"The time has come for transparency in legal fees. and law firms and their clients are recognising this. In addition the analytics that the platform provides are invaluable and enable law firms to greatly improve their behavioral and financial performance.”

Legal fees and billing systems are often thought of as complex and opaque, occasionally leading to disputes and months spent wrangling over fees.

As an industry, the average law firm 'lock-up' period - unbilled work in progress plus debtor days - is 120 days and recovery rates are around 84%. Meanwhile clients can face uncertainty over pricing and difficulty in accurately budgeting for their legal work.

According to Apperio, the platform allows law firms to accurately price, track and assess legal matters, identifying areas for improved efficiency and providing value to both sides.