Confido
Legal,
an
embedded
payments
platform
built
specifically
for
law
firms
and
the
legal
technology
companies
that
serve
them,
has
raised
$9
million
in
financing
across
two
rounds,
the
company
told
LawNext
in
an
exclusive
advance
interview.
The
latest
and
larger
of
the
two
rounds
was
led
by
Aquiline
Capital
Partners,
a
global
private
investment
firm
with
approximately
$12
billion
in
assets
under
management
and
a
focus
on
financial
services
and
technology.
Additional
participants
included
The
Legaltech
Fund,
Breakwater
Ventures,
Live
Oak
Bank
and
Context
Ventures,
which
also
led
the
earlier
seed
round.
The
announcement
combines
the
current
round,
which
closed
in
November,
with
the
seed
round
from
2024,
which
Confido’s
co-founder
and
CEO
Emery
Wager
said
totaled
a
little
over
$2
million.
The
two
rounds
are
being
disclosed
together
now
because
neither
had
been
publicly
announced
previously,
Wager
said.
Aquiline’s
interest
in
the
deal
reflects
its
existing
familiarity
with
both
the
legal
technology
and
payments
sectors.
In
legal,
Aquiline
is
majority
owner
of
the
practice
management
company
SurePoint
and
is
also
an
investor
in
ABCLegal,
Consilio
and
LegalMation.
“They
really
have
a
unique
overlap
between
payments
and
legal
tech,”
Wager
said.
“They’ve
done
a
couple
big
payments
investments,
and
so
they’re
a
great
partner
in
terms
of
experience
both
in
legal
tech
and
payments.”
From
Gravity
Payments
to
Independence
Confido
Legal’s
history
runs
through
Seattle-based
Gravity
Payments,
the
payments
processing
company
known
for
its
headline-making
decision
in
2015
to
institute
a
$70,000
minimum
salary
for
all
employees.
Wager,
who
earned
an
engineering
degree
from
Stanford
and
served
as
a
U.S.
Marine
Corps
infantry
officer
with
deployments
to
Afghanistan,
joined
Gravity’s
corporate
development
team
in
August
2013,
spending
nearly
a
decade
focused
on
strategic
partnerships,
product
development
and
marketing.
In
February
2019,
Gravity
launched
what
was
then
called
Gravity
Legal
as
an
internal
subdivision,
designed
to
bring
payments
processing
tailored
to
law
firm
trust
accounting
and
IOLTA
compliance
to
the
legal
market.
By
2023,
with
the
legal-specific
business
having
developed
its
own
distinct
identity
and
customer
base,
the
decision
was
made
to
spin
it
out
as
an
independent
company.
With
a
small
founding
team
and
limited
capital,
the
independent
company
found
its
footing
quickly,
Wager
told
me.
“The
business
just
took
off,”
he
said.
“It
was
half
as
many
people
working
on
it,
but
those
people
were
foot
to
the
fire,
really
motivated.”
In
December
2023,
the
company
officially
rebranded
as
Confido
Legal,
taking
its
name
from
the
Latin
word
for
“trust,”
a
reference
to
the
trust
account
management
that
is
one
of
the
core
capabilities
of
the
platform.
What
the
Company
Does
Confido
positions
itself
as
infrastructure
rather
than
a
standalone
product
for
end
users.
Its
platform
is
built
around
a
single
GraphQL
API
that
allows
legal
technology
companies
to
embed
payment
acceptance,
trust
account
management,
and
–
more
recently
–
digital
disbursements
directly
into
their
own
applications,
without
having
to
build
compliance,
fraud
prevention
and
underwriting
capabilities
from
scratch.
The
compliance
angle
is
not
incidental.
Law
firms
are
required
under
state
bar
rules
to
maintain
strict
separation
between
client
trust
funds
and
their
own
operating
accounts,
and
IOLTA
regulations
govern
how
interest
on
those
accounts
is
handled.
Generic
payment
processors
were
not
built
with
these
requirements
in
mind,
and
Wager
argues
that
retrofitting
a
general-purpose
platform
like
Stripe
for
legal
use
is
both
time-consuming
and
costly
for
legal
tech
developers.
“Our
pitch
to
the
developers
is,
‘Hey,
we
have
this
legal-specific
toolbox
that
they
can
integrate
with,
and
they
don’t
have
to
worry
about
chaining
multiple
accounts
together.”
As
of
2026,
the
company
reports
serving
more
than
1,500
law
firms
across
the
United
States
and
Canada,
primarily
through
its
legal
tech
partners
rather
than
through
direct
law
firm
relationships.
Its
integration
partners
include
practice
management
platforms
such
as
Clio
Manage,
Lawmatics,
Lawcus,
SmartAdvocate,
and
Prima.Law,
as
well
as
financial
and
accounting
tools
including
QuickBooks
Online
and
NetSuite.
Disbursements:
A
Growing
Focus
A
significant
portion
of
the
new
capital
is
directed
at
expanding
Confido’s
disbursements
product,
which
the
company
launched
using
funds
from
its
2024
round.
Where
the
payments
acceptance
side
of
the
business
focuses
on
law
firms
collecting
fees
from
clients,
disbursements
addresses
the
outbound
flow
of
money
–
sending
settlement
funds,
unused
retainer
balances
or
award
payments
to
clients
and
other
parties
after
a
case
resolves.
Wager
said
the
target
market
here
is
plaintiff-side
firms
–
personal
injury,
workers’
compensation
and
mass
tort
practices
–
where
the
current
standard
is
still
largely
paper
checks.
Part
of
his
company’s
challenge,
he
said,
has
been
simply
convincing
law
firms
that
sending
settlement
funds
digitally
is
ethically
permissible
under
bar
rules.
“We’ve
had
to
teach
that
side
of
the
industry
that
it
is
ethical
to
digitally
disburse
money
from
your
IOLTA
account,”
he
said.
The
company
has
signed
a
deal
with
the
litigation
management
platform
Litify
to
power
a
branded
disbursements
offering
and
is
working
with
additional
case
management
platforms
on
the
plaintiff
side
that
it
expects
to
announce
in
the
near
future.
While
the
current
disbursements
product
handles
the
client-facing
side
of
payouts
well,
Wager
said
the
company
will
be
further
developing
its
capabilities
around
making
payments
to
medical
providers,
lienholders
and
other
third
parties
involved
in
case
resolution.
Position
in
the
Market
Confido’s
most
direct
competitor
in
the
legal
payments
space
is
8am’s
LawPay
product,
which
holds
significant
market
share
and
strong
brand
recognition.
But
Wager
frames
the
competitive
landscape
somewhat
differently,
pointing
to
Stripe
as
the
company
he
thinks
about
most,
given
Confido’s
developer-focused
approach.
“I
wake
up
every
day
and
think,
how
can
we
be
so
valuable
in
our
vertical
that
it
just
doesn’t
make
sense
to
integrate
with
something
like
Stripe,”
he
said.
The
appeal
to
legal
tech
developers
is
that
Confido
offers
a
single
API
and
a
single
underwriting
process
to
cover
the
full
range
of
payments
and
financial
workflows
their
law
firm
customers
need
–
avoiding
the
need
to
connect
multiple
financial
services
with
different
compliance
requirements.
The
company
also
uses
machine
learning
to
assess
the
risk
profile
of
individual
transactions
and
detect
fraud
–
an
unsexy
but
important
function,
given
that,
as
Wager
noted,
bad
actors
periodically
attempt
to
establish
fraudulent
law
firm
accounts
to
exploit
the
payment
infrastructure.
Broader
Ambitions
Beyond
payments
and
disbursements,
Wager
has
his
eye
on
a
wider
range
of
embedded
financial
services
for
law
firms,
including
lending,
treasury
management
and
banking
services,
though
he
declined
to
offer
specifics
on
what
products
might
come
next.
“I’m
very
personally
excited
about
the
roadmap,”
he
said.
“There’s
so
much
in
finance,
and
it
seems
every
time
we
turn
around
there’s
new
money
moving
in
law
in
a
regulated
way.”
Zach
Posner,
managing
partner
of
The
Legaltech
Fund,
which
participated
in
both
rounds,
described
the
company’s
approach
as
a
response
to
a
longstanding
problem.
“The
Confido
team
continues
to
deliver
purpose-built,
compliant
infrastructure
that
allows
money
to
move
the
way
law
firms
and
legal
technology
companies
need,”
he
said
in
a
statement.
Dante
La
Ruffa,
the
Aquiline
partner
who
led
the
investment,
said
the
firm
sees
Confido
as
building
toward
becoming
the
central
financial
platform
for
the
legal
market.
“Confido
makes
it
easier
for
law
firms
and
LegalTech
platforms
to
get
paid
and
pay
out
funds
by
building
compliant,
modern
payments
and
payouts
directly
into
the
systems
they
already
use,”
he
said.
For
Wager,
who
has
seen
his
business
grow
significantly
since
spinning
off
three
years
ago,
his
longer-term
goal
is
not
about
a
quick
exit,
he
told
me,
but
about
building
something
durable
in
a
market
he
sees
as
having
a
long
runway.
“I
would
love
for
Confido
to
reach
new
heights
in
the
next
20,
30,
40
years,”
he
said.