NZ tech company makes it on Forbes’ list

Legal tech startup Automio has made the Forbes’ list of 60 tech companies, led by women, that are shaking up technology across the world.

The New Plymouth-based company, which has created a lawyer bot that interviews clients and frees up staff from legal work, was ranked fifth on the disruptor list.

The company creates software to automate the creation of paper-based policies.

“Our bots, they interview clients and they create output, whether it’s a legal document, legal advice or contracts,” Claudia King, an excommercial lawyer and founder of Automio, said.

At present, interviews with clients are conducted online through law firms’ websites in a written question and answer format, but the company will soon move to develop bots that clients can actually speak with.

“It’s one of the things that we’re going to be focusing on come March,” King said.

More than 100 law firms and businesses are now using Automio software, most of them based in New Zealand and Australia, but the company also has users in Singapore, Malaysia, the UK, the US and Canada.

Earlier in the year Automio also launched free software that generated sexual harassment policies for businesses.

In just a few hours of the launch, around 50 companies from a range of industries had used the software to generate customised policies.

Automio has done three capital raising rounds since its inception in July last year, and has 21 investors.

Its current capital raise is from high-net worth wholesale and institutional investors which will be used to further develop its product.

“At the moment we’re just really playing in Australia and New Zealand, so next year after we’ve done some market validation we’re going to be looking to go further a field, and using some of the capital to do that,” King said.