Startup Menhir Financial wins fifth Cuatrecasas Acelera program

Cuatrecasas Acelera, the accelerator program for projects based on legaltech and with a high legal complexity, has ended its fifth program by holding Demo Day. After four months of work, the startups participating in the Acelera program and the Fast Track program presented their projects in a pitch and a demo before a panel made up of the main investors and agents in the country’s startup ecosystem. Demo Day, which was held online—like all the other stages of the program—brought together over 100 attendees.

This year, the program focused on technologies such as artificial intelligence (“AI”) and big data. The projects selected include innovation solution proposals for legaltech and projects with a technological base and a high level of legal, fintech and deeptech complexity. The startups received support from a team of over 40 Cuatrecasas lawyers and from their legal mentors:  Elisenda Baldrís, Álvaro Bourkaib, Jorge Canta, Jorge Monclús, Diana Rivera and Alejandro Negro. The entrepreneurs received comprehensive legal advice from all Cuatrecasas practice areas, which was complemented and coordinated with business advice.

The winning startup, Menhir Financial, is a platform that works with banks, funds and servicers to find out how to distribute NPLs most efficiently and maximize the performance of these assets. It has also developed a series of AI-based models that understand the way in which secured loans are recovered and, through a valuation of intangibles, design the optimal portfolio recovery plan. 

To reach its decision, the panel considered the degree of innovation, the team, and business viability and scalability. The members of this panel of experts were Rafael Fontana, Senior Partner of Cuatrecasas; Isabel Gandoy, a partner at Cuatrecasas; Francesc Muñoz, CIO of Cuatrecasas; Alberto Gómez, managing partner of Adara Ventures; David Pascual, member of Gellify’s advisory board; Albert Torruella, head of Corporate Venturing at ACCIÓ; and Sergio Esteve de Miguel, co-founder and CMO of Bigle Legal (Startup Alumni, 1st edition).

Francesc Muñoz, CIO at Cuatrecasas and the driving force behind Cuatrecasas Aclera, stated that the accelerator program faces greater challenges every year: “The startups’ maturity increases every year and the challenges they pose also increase, which encourages us to continue growing and to improving the program.”

Alba Molina, innovation project manager at Cuatrecasas, said that the law firm had consolidated its corporate venturing strategy and that it had met its objectives: “We are satisfied because, over these five years, Cuatrecasas has been constantly evolving, developing its initiatives and adapting its actions to its own challenges and those of the sector, as well as adapting to the needs of the startups, its clients and society. We are convinced that we will continue in this line.” She also added that the consolidation of any new technology, business model or disruptive solution always involves strong dependency on the regulatory framework, regardless of the sector in question: “Therefore, it is essential to accompany these projects from the early stages, offering cross-functional advice, and understanding and working on all their challenges with experienced professionals.”

Rafael Fontana, Senior Partner of Cuatrecasas, closed Demo Day, stating that all the parties involved learn and evolve thanks to this program. He highlighted that there will be more editions of Cuatrecasas Acelera and that it is an honor for the firm to be able to help the startups.

The 32 startups that have participated in the Cuatrecasas Acelera program so far have obtained financing of over €21 million. Through Cuatrecasas Ventures, the firm has continued its support to five startups outside of the accelerator and fast track programs, and it has participated in four follow-on rounds.

In addition to consolidating its corporate venturing strategy, its accelerator and fast-track programs, and Cuatrecasas Ventures, in recent years, Cuatrecasas has supported other initiatives, including innovation seminars at different national and international universities and scouting missions to learn about the legaltech startup ecosystem in other countries.

Participating startups in the Acelera program:

PARALLEL (legaltech): Platform that helps to obtain documents and responses from clients on time and without email chains. Its simple design streamlines workflows and document exchange in an organized fashion.

MYDATAMOOD (legaltech): Startup aimed at radically changing the ecosystem around managing and monetizing personal contact details, which companies call for to develop their business plans, client management and marketing strategies.  

LENDMARKET (fintech): First platform in Spain for secondary market corporate debt. 

MENHIR FINANCIAL (fintech): Platform that works with banks, funds and servicers to find out how to distribute NPLs most efficiently and maximize the performance of these assets. It has also developed a series of AI-based models that understand the way in which secured loans are recovered and, through a valuation of intangibles, design the optimal portfolio recovery plan.  

ALL READ MACHINE (deeptech): Company that develops solutions based on deep learning to detect and digitize texts, codes and symbols in supply chains.

BIOMETRICVOX (legaltech): Applied technology startup that focuses on developing complex AI-based software systems for voice biometrics. 

Participating startups in the Fast Track program:

TIQ TIME (legaltech): Platform that helps lawyers to create entries of completed and uniform times with an add-on for Microsoft Office and document management systems. The software registers the time spent on activities such as drafting documents, emails, holding meetings and phonecalls. TIQ Time uses this data to create standard, quality time sheets, with uniform time entries that the lawyers can validate.

PARALLEL (legaltech): Platform that helps to obtain documents and responses from clients on time and without email chains. Its simple design streamlines workflows and document exchange in an organized fashion.

About Cuatrecasas Acelera

The startup accelerator program for the legaltech sector and startups with high legal complexity designed by the law firm Cuatrecasas identifies the best talent from among European projects with great potential, to (i)promote them through a four-month accelerator program, (ii) provide them with legal, business and technological support; and (iii) give them access to clients and to financing. The winning projects from previous years were: the banking and financing startup TOQIO (fourth edition), certification application based on blockchain technology BlockTac (third edition), the startup involving drones for companies and institutions FuVeX (third edition), the electronic signature platform Validated ID (second edition) and the fintech platform TheLogicValue (first edition).

Also, in every edition, the Cuatrecasas Acelera Fast Track program selects two more mature legaltech or technological startups and develops a use case with them, to give the companies an opportunity to learn about and validate the viability of their initiatives in a real professional environment.

Cuatrecasas Acelera website: https://acelera.cuatrecasas.com