UpCounsel grabs $2.4M, plans to expand its legal marketplace to Illinois, Texas, and more

Entrepreneurs don’t have a lot of time, and dealing with attorneys takes plenty of it.

Enter UpCounsel, a two-year-old startup in San Francisco, that’s created a marketplace of attorneys for business owners seeking legal help, big or small. And today, the company is announcing it has raised $2.4 million in additional seed funding.

Traditionally, businesses in need of legal counsel or services have to manually find an attorney. They collect recommendations from friends, the Yellow Pages, and research online, then somehow pick out an attorney, and then have to endure meetings, calls, and even snail mail until the work gets done.

UpCounsel’s marketplace matches businesses with attorneys based on their needs. Businesses submit the project or service they need and later review proposals from relevant attorneys. Once they’ve selected the one they want to hire, UpCounsel provides an easy and secure workspace to conduct the communications necessary to get the job done. UpCounsel is designed both for one-off needs as well as for ongoing work.

Metamorphic Ventures and Crosslink Capital led the round, with participation from previous investors such as Homebrew. The company will use the new funding to expand beyond California and New York, into new markets including Texas and Illinois.

UpCounsel was founded in 2012 by Matt Faustman and Mason Blake, and is based in San Francisco. This brings the company’s total funding to $4 million. UpCounsel is also a graduate from AngelPad’s accelerator program.