Justika Raises Seed Funding from East Ventures, Expanding Public Access to Legal Services in Indonesia

June 23, 2021

Justika, a legal services marketplace based in Indonesia, announced earlier today that it has secured an undisclosed amount of seed funding. The funding round is led by East Ventures, with participation from Skystar Capital.

Justika is a legal tech platform designed to connect people who need legal services to lawyers and other supporting services, such as company formation agents and translators. It innovates not only the way the public search for lawyers, but also how lawyers work. Justika uses NLP (Natural Language Processing) to match clients to curated lawyers based on specialties. Once matched, clients can consult with the relevant lawyer and get replies within less than five minutes. Depending on the necessities, lawyers can offer subsequent services, such as document review, drafting, phone consultation, aided negotiation, and court advocacy. For lawyers, Justika facilitates the way they meet clients.

Justika plans to use this investment to expand public access to legal services in Indonesia. The fresh capital will be used for product development, marketing and hiring talents in different legal areas to provide more values to clients. Currently, Justika focuses on three legal areas that most people often encounter in their daily lives: family law, laws involving small and medium enterprises, and property law. In addition, Justika plans to expand and provide access to other legal services needed by the public in the future.

As part of Hukumonline, Justika brings together three trailblazers from different fields: Ahmad Fikri Assegaf, Chairman and Co-founder of Justika, a senior partner in AHP (Assegaf Hamzah and Partners) with more than 25 years of experience in law and co-founder of Hukumonline, Indonesia’s largest legal portal; Melvin Sumapung, CEO and Co-founder of Justika with a business strategist background with experience in creating legal tech products since 2017; and Husein, CTO and Co-founder of Justika, a seasoned founder in the gaming and agri-tech industries.

Justika combines Fikri’s deep legal experience with Melvin and Husein’s drive for innovation. Fikri together with Arief Surowidjojo, Ibrahim Assegaf, and Pusat Studi Hukum dan Kebijakan Indonesia (PSHK), a civil society organization, established Hukumonline over 20 years ago. Currently, Hukumonline plays a crucial role in providing better access to justice through online  legal database, legal analysis, legal clinic and news. Justika’s presence further enhances the legal tech offering in Indonesia.

For Fikri, access to justice is one of the main concerns. “The key is to educate the public in order to democratize access to lawyers and resolving legal issues.” Melvin said that the longstanding perception of the complexity and difficulty of getting legal service is a real hurdle for many.“ Justika seeks to alleviate this problem, by allowing people to get immediate and affordable legal service.” Husein added, “Our tech innovation allows clients and lawyers to utilise technology to access legal services in a novel way and also streamlining the way lawyers work by, for example, providing document templates and inheritance calculator for Muslim clients.”

 According to the Research Report on Access to Justice in Indonesia in 2019 by the Indonesian Judicial Research Society, Indonesian Legal Roundtable, and Yayasan Lembaga Bantuan Hukum Indonesia, around 110 million Indonesians face significant legal issues in the last two years. 71% of them give up in finding solutions due to access, either not knowing what to do or where to go. “This is where we come in. Justika is here to hopefully resolve this issue,” Melvin added.

Despite the challenges, Justika believes that there is a huge potential in the industry. With the “untapped” legal market worth about USD 7.5 billion, Justika plans to expand their user base and enhance their product line. Justika plans to double their revenue by targeting 7,000 unique paying users per month by next year.

“Low access to legal justice is a pivotal concern in Indonesia. It happens due to the complicated procedures that people have to face and lack of information on legal access. Justika has built a platform that gathers lawyers and clients, benefiting them with various useful features. We believe that Justika will democratize legal access and help millions of Indonesian people to understand rule of law easier,” said Willson Cuaca, Co-founder and Managing Partner of East Ventures.