Founded: A Digital Legal Platform for Entrepreneurs
Founded is an online platform that was built for entrepreneurs and their ongoing legal needs, empowering startups to bypass a lawyer all together when setting up their company—something that can cripple a new venture’s often limited budget.
“Entrepreneurs generally have two options when faced with legal issues. They can figure it out themselves without any guidance, or to go the traditional route and hire a law firm,” explains Shane Murphy, Founded co-founder and the company’s chief legal officer.
“The first option is risky and complicated. The second option is economically unfeasible for so many early stage businesses. With Founded, we are creating a third option—a do-it-yourself option that’s intuitive and informed by legal knowledge.”
Launched today, Founded automates legal services, from professionally incorporating a business to creating tailored legal agreements to managing shares. But when advice is needed beyond what Founded can deliver, entrepreneurs can onboard a qualified lawyer to handle the high-level legal work.
Murphy, a former litigation lawyer, says that Founded guides entrepreneurs to take on routine legal work but at a reduced risk. Founded gives entrepreneurs the confidence to run the legal side of business, a platform the company calls the “QuickBooks for Law.”
The intelligent platform acts as a early stage company’s virtual legal department. Users go through a question and answer interface based on what lawyers would actually ask their clients. Founded can follow the reasoning that a lawyer would use as answers will trigger the tool to add or take away language from a document. But Murphy assures that Founded can’t do everything for a entrepreneur.
“We are fully cognizant when we need to draw the line. If a company is in a serious litigation matter, we’re not saying Founded will solve that,” he says. “We’re not replacing lawyers, we’re letting lawyers do what they want to do, which is strategic legal advice. They are happy to see it come into play taking care of the routine services.”
Toronto-based Founded Technologies are behind the intelligent tool for new ventures, but it wasn’t their first foray into the legal world. The team launched Law Scout to connect small and medium-sized businesses with lawyers online, whether that was to register a trademark or create their very own website terms and policies.
Founded is currently available in Ontario, and will roll out to B.C. and Alberta by the end of the year. In 2018, Murphy says they’re on track for a Canada-wide expansion as well as primed to enter their first international market, the United States.
Based in the Legal Innovation Zone at Ryerson University’s DMZ, Founded Technologies has served hundreds of entrepreneurs across Canada since Law Scout launched in 2015. The Toronto company’s innovative legal services have been recognized by PwC and the Attorney General of Ontario.
