What’s Property Filter? 

Property Filter is a SaaS platform that helps property investors find great investment opportunities in a faster way. We are mostly a B2C company, focusing on retail investors and we provide an alternative solution to what the current property investment market offers.

What are the legal challenges you were facing?

We were looking for a legal partner to support us on various aspects of our business. Initially we needed a specialist to set up our EMI scheme, but we also wanted that person to support us with the upcoming fundraise. We went through a robust procurement process, talking to quite a few law firms.

From the very beginning we were very clear that we didn’t want to work with a traditional law firm and feel like one of their many clients. At the same time, we were looking for someone professional who could deliver up to the standard we wanted.

Why did you choose Accelerate Law?

We really liked Simon. He was really personable and we immediately felt that he understood our business very well and had the expertise to meet our legal needs. Accelerate Law was the boutique law firm we were looking for that could support Property Filter from day 1. On top of that, Accelerate Law’s model was also really accessible for us: we could have an in-house lawyer on a flexible, pay as-you-go basis.

How Accelerate Law helped you solve these challenges?

EMI scheme

We had a particular need for the EMI scheme implementation as some of our team is based in France and some is here in the UK. Simon explained the scope of work really clearly from the beginning and we really like that. He calmly showed us the steps and the timeline of the whole process, making it very straightforward.

We are business founders and sometimes we feel we know nothing about it. Simon’s way of working is completely different to what we experienced before with some other lawyers: the classic never-ending conversation that goes around and around and at the end of it we still didn’t know what to do.

Fundraise

We did a pre-seed with mostly private investors using Seed Legals as a temporary tool. We were looking to raise a Seed round soon after that and we knew we couldn’t use Seed Legals templates as they would be outlived by VC’s agreements. We needed proper legal advice for such a big milestone for us. 

The Accelerate Law team guided us throughout the whole fundraise process, from the due diligence, to handling quite a lot of back and forth with investors and signing the documents. With them, we could understand all the legal terms and we could successfully negotiate bespoke terms with our VCs and put more founder friendly terms in our agreements. In addition, the way Accelerate Law was amending and commenting on the VC agreements made us feel we were properly legally backed. Eventually this was successfully reflected on the results of the funding round: the VCs couldn’t really push back too much on their terms and we confidently closed the funding round.

What aspect of our services did you find more useful?

There are many:

1. We get a reactive, reliable and flexible service. We have legal needs that go up and down and sometimes we have nothing for a while, but when we do, Accelerate Law always delivers in a timely manner. It is also a pay-as-you-go service, which is great for startups like us. And finally, but most importantly, we know we can trust Simon and Accelerate Law.

2. We feel that with Accelerate Law we can unlock and access lots of different specialist and niche needs. We wouldn’t go anywhere else for legal support.

3. I’ve got Simon’s WhatsApp number - I’ve been known for Friday night calls and he would always pick the phone up. He’s always been helpful. We really feel like Simon could sit with us in our office as part of our team and we wouldn’t get this with a traditional law firm.

Where do you see the biggest impact that Accelerate Law has in your business?

We had lots of certainty around the compliant/legal aspect of Property Filter and for a long time we used to create our own agreements, using online templates, like our T&Cs. But it has come to a stage where we are growing and we have grown Property Filter. All the legal documents and agreements are now properly in place and watertight, and we feel very confident around our new legal structure. For us this is very valuable, it’s peace of mind.