Avvo Raises $71.5M from TCV, Others for Growing Legal Marketplace

Seattle-based Avvo, which helps people find and review lawyers, has raised $71.5 million from Technology Crossover Ventures, with participation from Vulcan and prior backer Coatue Management.

The new capital will be spent on hiring, marketing, and product development, the company says in a news release. Earlier this month, the company announced plans to consolidate its headquarters to seven floors of a downtown Seattle office building to accommodate growth.

Avvo raised $37.5 million last April in a Series D round led by Coatue, with participation from Benchmark, Ignition Partners, and DAG Ventures. This latest round brings total funding for the company, founded in 2006 by CEO Mark Britton, to $132 million. Bloomberg, citing unnamed sources, reports that Avvo is valued by investors at $650 million.

Avvo is a marketplace for lawyers, some 225,000 of whom now participate to find new clients. The company says some 650,000 contacts between consumers and lawyers are made each month through its site, double the pace from a year ago.

As part of the funding, TCV founding general partner Jay Hoag joins the Avvo’s board.

Author: Benjamin Romano

Benjamin is the former Editor of Xconomy Seattle. He has covered the intersections of business, technology and the environment in the Pacific Northwest and beyond for more than a decade. At The Seattle Times he was the lead beat reporter covering Microsoft during Bill Gates’ transition from business to philanthropy. He also covered Seattle venture capital and biotech. Most recently, Benjamin followed the technology, finance and policies driving renewable energy development in the Western US for Recharge, a global trade publication. He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication.