After a while, Danae Shell got tired of hearing the same story over and over again.
“Something bad would happen to someone at work, and the story always ended the same way,” she told TechCrunch. “They just left, because doing anything else was incredibly complex and expensive.”
One doesn’t need to look far to notice that for many people, seeking legal recourse feels so daunting and complex that many just don’t try. Even for someone with a cushy tech job, the prospect of going against their company is daunting.
That bothered Shell so much that in 2022, she launched Valla, which seeks to make legal support more accessible to workers.
The company focuses on employment law, and since its launch, it says, more than 12,000 workers have successfully brought complaints against employers and negotiated settlements.
“The basic thesis of Valla was, ‘If we can build tools that let someone file their tax return from their mobile phone, surely we can build something that can help them manage their own legal issue,’” Shell said.
Valla platform enables users to collect their own evidence, generate documents, and then talk to legal experts who “coach” them through what the legal process would be for each stage of their case. For example, Shell said, a user can keep track of an ongoing issue at work, draft a Tribunal claim, and then purchase a coaching package to prepare for the preliminary hearing.
Like nearly every other startup these days, Valla uses AI to streamline knowledge transfer. “The GenAI engine in our platform acts as a legal secretary in the background,” Shell said. “It does everything from briefing the coach on the case, taking notes and actions during any calls, and picking up all the admin and reminders as the case progresses.”
Investors seem to like what they see at Valla: Today, the company said it had raised a £2 million (about $2.7 million) seed round led by Ada Ventures. Active Partners and Portfolio Ventures, as well as returning investors Techstart and Resolution Foundation, also invested.
Shell said Valla started using generative AI in early 2023 and paired with the early traction her product received, that helped investors see the potential of her product.
The company will use the fresh capital to boost marketing, build relationships with worker unions and insurers, and build more AI features within the platform. After employment law, Shell said the company hopes to expand into small claims and tenancy.
“Then we will broaden out to other geographies,” she said. “We’re already looking at opportunities in the U.S. and Europe.”