Steno Secures $15M Series B Funding Led by Left Lane Capital to Expand National Presence

Global News

24
May
2023

Editor

Steno, the tech-enabled provider of legal support services, announces the close of a $15M Series B funding round, led by Left Lane Capital. The company has raised a total of $38.5M, including a Series A round completed in fall 2020 led by Trust Ventures.

Greg Hong, Dylan Ruga, and Dan Anderson co-founded Steno in 2018 with a mission to revolutionize the legal support service industry by rebuilding the traditional court reporting agency model. Steno's flagship product, DelayPay, enables law firms to defer service costs until their case resolves, solving a long-standing cash flow problem for lawyers.

Dylan Ruga, Steno's Co-Founder and a law firm owner himself, explained, "As a plaintiff attorney, I found myself in a spot where all of my working capital was tied up in case costs. I couldn't grow my business, there were no court reporting agencies that would defer costs until my cases settled, and securing litigation financing was resource-draining for my staff. I called Greg and Dan with the idea, and Steno took shape."

Greg Hong, Co-Founder and CEO added, "We realized there was a real solution here to meaningfully improve the way lawyers can operate their firms by offering highly-reliable services underpinned by purpose-built technology and a financing layer. It was a massive opportunity to build a best-in-class service layer in this $17B traditionally-analog market."

As part of its Series B fundraise, Steno also announces a strategic investment from Clio Ventures, the direct investment arm of Clio, the world's largest legal technology platform servicing 150,000 legal professionals. "We're thrilled to welcome Clio as a strategic partner during our 2023 expansion," said Hong. "Building an integration within Clio's legal practice management platform enables shared customers to access all of their case activities in real time, removing common administrative hurdles and freeing up valuable time for their clients." The companies anticipate launching an integration later this year.

Steno built its momentum in light of the pandemic, which catalyzed an industry-wide reckoning of its relationship to technology for legal proceedings. From 20 employees to over 100 in under a year, the company stood at the forefront of remote deposition technology with Steno Connect, the purpose-built video conferencing platform. It has since expanded its offering to a suite of products designed to enable law firms and court reporters to focus on the work that matters most.

"Steno has found phenomenal product-market fit with its online legal services marketplace and DelayPay product," said Jason Fiedler, Managing Partner at Left Lane Capital. "They are enabling law firms to take on more volume with greater efficiency, and the business is more than doubling market share year over year as a result."

In the past year, Steno launched its rapidly-growing concierge e-filing and service of process, a natural extension of the essential services law firms need on deferred-payment terms.

The Series B funding will allow Steno to continue growing its footprint in new markets across the country, develop adjacent service channels for its clients, and expand its tech team to pursue a mission of transforming the way legal support services are consumed.