Ping aims to help legal professionals ‘obsessed with time’ to better manage their productivity at work.
San Francisco-based start-up Ping has secured $13.2m in Series A funding in a round led by Upfront Ventures. There was additional participation from existing investors BoxGroup, First Round Capital, Initialized Capital and Ulu Ventures.
The start-up’s technology automates workflow for attorneys and other professionals who previously relied on manual input to antiquated software. According to its website, “Ping frees lawyers from timekeeping so they can focus on their work, and firms can understand where time is being spent”.
In 2017, Ping was recognised as Legal Tech Start-up of the Year by the American Bar Association, and it was named as one of the US National Law Journal’s 2019 Top Emerging Legal Technologies.
The company closed $3.7m in seed funding in 2017 and this latest round brings the total raised by the company to $17.4m. With the fresh funding, Ping plans to expand its team and its market reach.
How it works
According to the company, Ping can be integrated with every program a lawyer uses for billable work to understand where and how lawyers spend their time.
It operates in the background and uses AI to identify which tasks legal professionals are performing and for which clients. It can distinguish between personal and professional activities and allows the workers to edit these activities on their timesheets when it’s time to submit their hours.
Ping’s CEO, Ryan Alshak, said: “We as a society are obsessed with time, yet the one place we spend most of it – work – is a complete black box.
“Today we can go into any law firm in the world and say that our system will better their lawyers’ lives, boost revenue, give clients more accurate and timely bills and offer management better insight into how to operate. But this is just the beginning.”
Alshak added: “Our mission is to give back people their time, wherever they happen to work.”
Kara Nortman, partner at Upfront Ventures, said: “Timekeeping in the legal profession has remained virtually unchanged for decades, which means skilled attorneys are wasting time and money on unfulfilling, unproductive work.
“Ryan and the Ping team have lived this problem and developed an elegant, highly technical solution to improve law firms’ work and efficiency. It’s just the tip of the iceberg, given the number of industries Ping can serve in the future.”