The co-founders of plant-based food brand THIS are behind a new AI-first law firm which has just raised £2 million in seed funding.
Andy Shovel and Pete Sharman sold their burger chain business back in 2016 and two years later founded THIS, a market-leading vegan brand with cheeky marketing which recently announced its first profitable month.
Now they have turned their attention to something completely different.
“In a quite natural and linear progression from selling vegan sausages, I’m proud to announce that I’m now co-founding a law firm called Keith,” Shovel wrote on LinkedIn.
“About a year ago, I tried to buy a house. It went spectacularly wrong, I got really grumpy and complained – a lot. But like any grumpy founder, I’ve channelled the bad mood into an attempt to solve the problem, via Keith.”
Shovel described the house-buying experience as a “monumental shocker… sleepless nights, hounding solicitors and a dodgy seller – the full works”.
He added: “I was blown away by how clunky the process was, and how no technology was being incorporated to help.”
Keith, set to launch this summer, claims to automate 80% of traditionally human workflows and has a 24/7 AI-powered client helpline.
Backed VC led Keith’s seed round, with Breega and several angel investors also making up the £2m.
“For most people, dealing with a solicitor means waiting, chasing and not knowing what’s going on. Keith removed those pain-points using technology, and we’re hugely excited to back the business,” said Andre De Haes, partner at Backed VC.
Sam Tucker, Keith’s third founder who oversees product, previously started hybrid scheduling platform Common Surface.
Eddie Goldsmith – former chairman of the UK Conveyancing Association and founder of a market-leading conveyancing firm in the 90s – is a strategic advisor and non-executive director.
Each year, more than 530,000 UK property transactions fall through, causing untold emotional and financial strain, within a system widely seen as slow, opaque and fundamentally broken. Conveyancing will be Keith’s first market, before it expands to other practice areas.
At the core of Keith is a network of specialised AI agents that handle document review, drafting, communication and workflow management, all within tightly controlled legal frameworks and with human oversight.
The result is a firm designed to operate continuously, rapidly and with client service levels usually only available to high net-worth clients.
Keith is targeting a 70% reduction in transaction times in the hope of mitigating risk and stress for clients.
In a first for UK legal services, Keith’s client service agent will be available 24/7 via phone and WhatsApp, and will be almost indistinguishable from a person – with the ability to answer questions, provide updates and take actions instantly.
The company is entering a £54 billion UK legal market that remains highly fragmented and largely unchanged for decades – a market it believes is now ripe to be disrupted by tech-first brands like Keith.
“Legal services haven’t yet been transformed by tech,” said Shovel. “But it’s coming. And when it does, it won’t look like a traditional law firm with software bolted on – we think it will look like Keith.”