AI-native law firm Keith raises £2m to target ‘broken’ conveyancing market

An AI-native conveyancing firm started by two plant-based food entrepreneurs has raised a £2 million seed round, with lead investment from Backed VC.

The firm, named Keith, is targeting the conveyancing market, an area of law the founders deem “slow, opaque and fundamentally broken”.

Inspired by its co-founder’s own “monumental shocker” of a house-buying experience, the startup said it aims to cut property transaction times by 70%. Keith will deploy a network of AI agents that execute document review, drafting, communication and workflow management, all with human oversight.

The system will feature a 24/7 AI agent customer service function, accessible by Whatsapp and over the phone, which the Keith team claim will be “almost indistinguishable from a person”.

From tempeh to transfer deeds

Co-founder Sam Tucker previously founded a hybrid working platform. The company’s other two other founders, Andy Shovel and Pete Sharman, are best known for founding vegan meat company THIS (THIS Isn’t Bacon, THIS Isn’t Chicken et cetera).

As Sharman put it on LinkedIn, “In a quite natural and linear progression from selling vegan sausages, I'm proud to announce that I'm now co-founding a law firm called Keith.”

THIS law firm, however, plans to become a fully SRA-regulated conveyancing outfit, with aims of fully automating “up to 80% of traditionally human legal work”.

The trio are being assisted by former chairman of the UK Conveyancing Association Eddie Goldsmith as non-executive director. 

Keith is currently trying to secure authorisation from the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, and hopes to be regulated by the SRA when it branches out to other practice areas, according to Legal Futures.

With a launch date pencilled in for Q3 this year, Shovel told the publication he plans to expand into other practice areas by rolling up other firms.

The dawn of the AI-first law firm

Keith’s desired path isn’t an untrodden one - several AI-native firms designed to disrupt the consumer legal services market have been approved by the SRA in the past 12 months. 

In May last year, the SRA approved its first ever AI law firm, small debt recovery automator Garfield founded by former City litigator Philip Young. February saw LawFairy, a firm which handles “deterministic-only" legal decisions on matters governed by clear statutory thresholds or eligibility tests, get the regulator’s green light.

AI-powered London-headquartered law firm Lawhive most recently raised $60 million to realise its US expansion and acquisition plans, and opened a New York office this month. 

Its model combines an AI operating system with human lawyers, and like Keith, focuses on consumer legal work such as wills, trusts and probate, conveyancing, family law, employment and immigration, as well as providing services for small business.