Rapidly growing lawyer directory Avvo has received a further $71.5 million in financing.
The latest funding round was led by Technology Crossover Ventures, with participation from Vulcan Capital and existing investor, Coatue.
In an announcement, Avvo said it will use the cash to accelerate hiring, increase Avvo brand awareness through marketing initiatives, and expand its product offerings.
The latest financing round brings the total venture investment in Avvo to $132 million.
In the last year, Avvo has doubled the number of contacts it makes between consumers and attorneys – now 650,000.
Avvo’s legal Q&A forum is the largest online, with nearly 7.5 million questions and answers, and Avvo attracts around 8 million visitors a month to its website.
In 2014, Avvo closed $37.5 million in financing led by Coatue, with additional investment from Benchmark Capital, Ignition Partners and DAG Ventures.
Bloomberg has reported that Avvo is valued at around $650 million, a remarkable figure for a legal sector business that was only founded in 2007.
According to Avvo CEO Mark Britton, the company may go public in the future.
Pictured: Avvo office in Seattle, from Glassdoor
Hi Lloyd – I am not surprised by the interest in AVVO because the company has created an interesting niche in the market and preys on unsophisticated attorneys who may not understand how people buy legal services especially if they learned how an an attorney gets a 10.0. I’d be curious as to whether you think AVVO has value for attorneys and whether people get business as a result of the rankings?
Thanks for your comment, Cheryl. I have watched Avvo since its founding in 2007, and it’s growth is a remarkable story. Yes, I do think it has value. The 1-10 score is clunky, and of course game-able, but I see that they have to strike a balance between presenting information to consumers in a readily understood format, and make money as a business. My focus in my work is mainly “BigLaw” but my interest in sites like Avvo and others that focus on the consumer/retail market is that eventually the same concepts will filter upwards and become relevant to our larger law firm clients. The top 20 law firms may be able to ignore Avvo, but if I was the marketing director at any law firm below #20, I would at the very least encourage the lawyers to fill in the profiles. A lot of the “let’s ignore it and it will go away” people are the same people that said ignore LinkedIn, Twitter, blogs in the early days.