Justin Hansky and Elena Tsalanidis of Deeligence

Highlights from the Legal Tech Venture Day Australia competition!

We had a fantastic LegalTech Venture Day Australia competition last night. Our four inspiring startup finalists pitched their hearts out and the judging panel and eager audience enjoyed a diverse selection of new, innovative ideas for LegalTech.

Legal Tech Venture Day Australia was proudly brought to you by the UNSW Allens Hub for Technology, Law and InnovationUNSW Business AI LabUNSW SydneyAustralian Legal Technology Association (ALTA)IE University Law SchoolLexis Nexis and Law Schools Global League and hosted at Allens Sydney.

Kicking off the night with a bang was our keynote speaker Professor Mary-Anne Williams, Michael J Crouch Chair in Innovation and Lead at UNSW Business AI Lab. Mary-Anne 's talk was titled Shaping the Future with LegalTech. She walked us through the impacts of AI to shape not only our present but where it will take us into the future. She suggests we perceive the influence of AI through the lens of a quote by Andrew Ng from 2017, "AI is the new electricity". Seeing it in this way, we begin to comprehend the scale of its impact, positive and negative. Mary-Anne left us with a number of business opportunities for LegalTech, both in deploying AI and in managing some of its risks. 

Our sincere thanks to both Mary-Anne Williams and Ben Johnston of UNSW Business AI Lab for their contributions not only in making last night's event happen but for all of their work leading up to the event, including the amazing UNSW LegalTech Startup Hatchathon event in March. 

Winners, judges and Hub Director for the UNSW LegalTech startup Hatchathon
LegalTech Venture Day Australia winners announcement (left to right): Lyria Bennett Moses, Ben Yi, Dominic Anderson, Justin Hansky, Elena Tsalanidis, Morag Latta. 

 

Now for the big news! We are thrilled to announce the winners of the LegalTech Venture Day Australia competition are DeeligenceOur warmest congratulations to Deeligence co-founders Elena Tsalanidis and Justin Hansky for taking home the trophy at last night's competition with an amazing pitch which wowed all three of our judges and our rapt audience. 

Deeligence are a Melbourne-based LegalTech startup who are helping lawyers run due diligence better. They equip corporate lawyers with modern workflow tools and helpful automation to save time and scale collaboration. Getting the deal done quicker from data room to final report. If you'd like to reach out to the team or know more about them, head to their website and follow them on LinkedIn

Our winners have taken home not only the trophy but will now have the chance to choose between a return economy international flight to compete in the South Summit competition on 8 June 2023, in Madrid, Spain or $5,000 AUD towards the cost of travel, whichever is preferred. 

Our finalists
A group photo of our four LTVD Australia finalist teams

 

Of course, it's all of the competitors who make the competition. All four LTVD Australia finalists delivered their pitches with passion and energy on the night. We want to say a huge thank you to each team for presenting their startup ideas with such creativity and showmanship.

If you're curious to know more, we encourage you to check out the amazing work or reach out to our other three finalists DDLoop Pty Ltd, represented by Jack Rathie, Rationative Systems, represented by Ron Van Der Meyden and BotL Pty Ltd, represented by Khoi Cao and Carl Azar online. Congratulations again to these teams for being selected to compete in the competition. We can't wait to see what you do next! 

LegalTech Venture Day Australia Judges
LTVD Judges introducing themselves before the competition. Photo credit: Amy Gardner

 

To our judges - Dominic Anderson, Allens Managing Associate and co-head of the Allens Accelerator program; Ben Yi, Founder of Stealth startup in analytics; and Morag Latta, Chief Executive Officer, ALTA - thank you for your generosity of time, the insightful questions you posed to our finalists during Q&As and taking on the challenge of ultimate decision-making. We deeply appreciate each of your invaluable contributions to the competition. 

Following the competition component of the LTVD Australia event, UNSW Law and Justice presented Legal Hour. 

The Legal Hour panel was chaired by Hub Director Lyria Bennett Moses, leading panelists Professor Michael Legg (UNSW Law & Justice, Lisa Kozaris (Chief Innovation & Legal Solutions Officer, Allens) and Evan Wong (LL.B/BCom UNSW 2015; CEO & Co-Founder, Checkbox.ai) in an hour long dynamic panel discussion on the topic of AI and Tomorrow's Lawyers: How technology will change what lawyers do and how legal services are delivered. Huge thanks for the entire panel and UNSW Law and Justice team for such an incredible and insightful discussion. 

A recording of the panel discussion of the event will be made publicly available soon. 

Legal Hour Panelists May 2023
Legal Hour Panelists Professor Michael Legg, Lisa Kozaris and Evan Wong with panel chair Professor Lyria Bennett Moses

 

Of course there are still thanks to impart. To the IE Law School team, we would like to impart our sincere gratitude to Kristin Karadzhova and Macarena Plaza Vela for their time and support to making the Australian leg of the Global LegalTech Venture Days competition event possible 

Last but certainly not least, our event would have been nothing without our amazing host and sponsor, Allens. A massive thank you to Ann Tulip and the Sydney office event team for making last night's event run so smoothly from start to finish.

Our networking drinks crept past close and we found it hard to break up all of the engaging, lively conversations between everyone present at the end of the night. With so many new connections forged and our winners heading off to Madrid for the South Summit competition in June, stay tuned for updated in this space in the near future. 

Keen to keep up with the latest news and events from the UNSW Allens Hub? Subscribe to our quarterly newsletter and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn today!

Photo Credits: Jacquie Manning