Court Buddy Raises $6M Series A! Met Lead Investor Through SheWorx a Year Ago
Lawyers.
Even the mere thought of them can cause most people acute anxiety. Mounds of paperwork, hours of unintelligible jargon, and thousands of dollars spent on overpriced services you probably did not even realize you had used.
Court Buddy Founders, James and Kristina Jones
James Jones Jr. and Kristina Jones, co-founders of Court Buddy, have built a platform to solve these legal headaches. After meeting their lead investors for their seed round through SheWorx a year ago, Court Buddy just raised $6 million to democratize access to a la carte legal services at flat rates, rather than the often inaccessible retainers that major law firms charge.
“Our underlying mission is to provide people with access to an attorney when they need it, regardless of their financial status,” said James.
This past year, they started offering micro loans to their clients so they could get legal needs met even faster. “We’re opening up the legal industry to people who have never had the means to access it before. The more people we can help, the more successful everyone is,” Kristina said.
James Currier, Managing Partner of NFX Capital, who has invested in over 60 marketplaces, led Court Buddy’s Series A and commented on the unique win-win-win nature of the platform. “In many marketplaces, there are the people who lose and the people who win. With Court Buddy, there doesn’t appear to be anyone losing - courts are gaining, lawyers are gaining, and citizens are gaining."
Linnea Roberts, founder of Gingerbread Capital and investor in Court Buddy noted, "In comparison to other services attempting to match legal professionals with clients, the connectivity and a la carte nature was missing. Only Court Buddy made that accessible."
Court Buddy has had an exciting couple of years. Last year, Kristina Jones became the 14th ever African American female founder to raise $1 milion, and since then, they've been growing their active user base 20% month over month. Now with the close of their Series A round, both founders are looking forward to bringing the marketplace to millions more citizens.
In addition to customer and revenue growth, when asked what they were most proud of, Kristina shared, "I'm proud of the team that we’ve built around our customers, the culture we’re building around our future and the people we’re hiring."
Echoing this excitement, Niija Kuykendall, SVP of Production at Warner Bros. Pictures and angel investor in Court Buddy, typically spends most of her time acquiring screenplays and ideas, investing in stories that "shift the zeitgeist." As a first time angel investor, she felt "the same feeling of ambition, excitement, and satisfaction investing in Court Buddy," as she did in a potential Hollywood blockbuster.
To date, there have still been less than 40 African American female founders to cross the $1 million funding mark, so moving forward also means giving back to lift up the next generation of founders. Reflecting on their journey thus far, the Court Buddy founders share their best advice for founders who seek to achieve the same level of growth.
"Find a mentor or coach," James advises. "When you're fundraising, your attention and energy are pulled in so many directions, so it's important to have have somebody around who has your back. We both had respective coaches who taught us things we wouldn’t have focused on on our own - time management, how to give feedback to the team, etc. If you’re serious about growing into a better leader of a company, you need to look outside yourself for guidance and support."
One more thing he is firm about: " If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. You must have a plan and process in place if you want to be successful in fundraising."
Most importantly, working together as both partners in business and in life, Kristina shares that it's remembering their underlying mission and "the why" that bolsters both their company and family. “We’ve always been each other’s rocks," she said. "Inside and outside of the business, we have a nourishing relationship. It's a matter of always respecting each other. Plus, having a young child also helps us shift the focus to not only being responsible business owners but also being responsible parents.”