Legal Tech Hub Vienna Accelerator Spring Batch 2019

Legal Tech Hub Vienna Accelerator Spring Batch 2019 launched

Five Legal Tech companies were selected by the LTHV jury on 26 February as part of a challenge and will now start the practice-oriented LTHV Accelerator Programme on 27 February 2019. This consists of four modules, which comprise two days of Legal & Business Coaching, workshops and sparring sessions. The program lasts from February to July.

The following companies convinced the Legal Tech Hub Vienna (LTHV) jury (in alphabetical order, see below for more information):

• APPbyYou from Germany
• Contractbook from Denmark
• Jaasper from Austria
• Miso from Scotland
• io from Germany

A total of 35 national and international companies (start-ups and SMEs) applied for inclusion in the LTHV Accelerator. The applicants came from Austria, Brazil, Germany, Denmark, Great Britain/Scotland, Romania, Switzerland, Singapore and the USA.

Sven Peper, CEO of taxy.io: "The LTHV Accelerator has spread its word far beyond Austria's borders. We are very excited to be part of the LTHV Start-Up program, as it gives us access to over 500 lawyers in CEE."

Jury member Christian Pindeus of SAXINGER: "When selecting the Accelerator participants, it was important to us that our Accelerator Program could actually be of use for the further development of the respective company and its Legal Tech services. So the idea, the team, the product and the business model had to be advanced accordingly."

The LTHV jury (picture above) consisted of representatives of the Founding Members of the Legal Tech Hub Vienna (LTHV) Christian Pindeus (SAXINGER), Philipp Dubksy (Herbst Kinsky), Andrea Miskolczi (Wolf Theiss Rechtsanwälte), Stefan Artner (DORDA), Thomas Kulnigg (Schönherr Rechtsanwälte), Sophie Schmid (PHH Rechtsanwälte), Alric Ofenheimer (Eisenberger-Herzog). In addition, two further experts could be won: the start-up expert of the TU Vienna, Birgit Hofreiter (Director Innovation Incubation Center of the TU Vienna) and Maria Scheibenreif, investment expert of the private start-up investor Schneider Holding.

Selection criteria

As part of a multi-stage selection process, 11 of the 35 applicants were invited to the Challenge on 26 February in Vienna, the House of Engineers. The Challenge was the final round of the selection process for the five accelerator places to be awarded.

Each of the 11 Legal Tech companies had to give a 10-minute presentation (pitch) and then face a 15-minute Q&A session. The aim of the challenge was to convince the jury not only to be an innovative legal tech startup/SME, but also the optimal candidate for the accelerator program. The jury evaluated the following criteria for the Challenge: Problem-solving competence, team, degree of maturity of the technical solution, degree of innovation, relevance for the legal sector.

Following the LTHV Challenge: Legal Tech Startup/KMU Fair
Following the LTHV Challenge, all 11 applicants had the opportunity to exchange ideas with the legal sector and specialist journalists for an evening in a relaxed atmosphere with around 150 visitors at the Haus der Ingenieure as part of a Legal Tech Startup/KMU trade fair. The fair was exclusively open to employees* of the founding members as well as to employees* of all LTHV partners (TPA Steuerberatung, i.e.t.c., Vienna Bar Association, Michael Lanzinger Rechtsanwalt, Vienna University of Technology and the Institute for Innovation and Digitisation in Law).