Justin Kan, the founder of Justin.tv, Twitch.tv (acquired by Amazon for $970 million), and Socialcam (acquired by Autodesk for $60 million). Kan, who was also a partner at Y Combinator, has launched a new legal startup called Atrium.
And Atrium has announced it has raised $65 million in a round of funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. Y Combinator’s Continuity Fund, Sound Ventures, and General Catalyst also participated in this round. In conjunction with the funding, Andreessen Horowitz partners Marc Andreessen and Andrew Chen and Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel will join Atrium’s board. And with the funding, Atrium is going to hire more legal and technical employees.
Atrium has already worked with a number of startups with their legal documentation such as Bird, Alto, and Sift Science. Atrium has about 250 clients in total as of right now, according to Forbes. Atrium provided a lawyer to the aforementioned companies and used proprietary technology to automate some of their filings.
“This was a problem I’d seen in my own experiences, where all these parts around legal were like a blocker to what I wanted to do, and the legal bills felt like Russian roulette,” said Kan via Forbes. “It’s almost like a tax you have as a business owner. That’s why I wanted to attack this problem.”
Kan founded Atrium with Augie Rakow and Nick Cortes in the middle of 2017 after he left Y Combinator to launch his own startup incubator. Rakow and Cortes have work experience at the law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe.
Originally, Atrium started out by helping startups with financial filings and then expanded to blockchain and outside counsel since then. By offering legal technology to associates and senior associates, they will be able to work with clients faster and speed up the potential to become a partner.
