This week, Smokeball made an exciting announcement: We have secured a $40 million investment from private investors and employee shareholders to double down on growth.
Smokeball will use the funds to fast-track the expansion of our 200+ person team and the advancement of our cloud-based legal practice management software to help small- and medium-sized law firms manage and grow their business in Australia and the U.S.
"Smokeball has grown rapidly because most small- and medium-sized law firms either don't use automated software or have poorly functioning solutions," said Hunter Steele, Smokeball CEO. "Our mission is to help lawyers grow the value of their business, which is the basis for everything we do.
"By securing private funding we can continue this mission with clients as our primary focus rather than delivering a short-term return to investors. With the support of private investors, we can focus on solutions that benefit our clients for decades to come."
With the COVID-19 pandemic and transition to remote work, now more than ever, lawyers need tools to run their practices as efficiently and effectively as possible. Smokeball offers critical solutions tailored to individual practice areas that also support cloud collaboration.
Tools like automatic time tracking; seamless legal document automation and form libraries; advanced matter management; and complete legal billing help Smokeball clients bill more than four hours per day, compared to the industry average of only two.
"Incredibly, we estimate 100,000 small- and medium-sized law firms in the Australia and U.S. don't use any law-specific software to manage cases and their business. Just as many are trapped in outdated legacy systems tied to a server, or use cloud platforms that lack innovation and depth," Hunter Steele said. "We exist to help firms realise the potential in their business, and to get them back to practicing law rather than pushing paper and chasing timesheets."