‘Serendipitous’ moment kickstarts Legitify’s attempt to disrupt Europe’s legal scene

Legitify, a digital platform that allows for remote notarisation, is aiming to grow its customer base after launching a new iteration of its platform at the end of last year.

Notarisation, which is the verification of legal and financial transactions, has traditionally required in-person meetings. The system has begun to move online in some parts of the globe, most notably in the US. However, it is still in its early stages in Europe.

Aida Lutaj, founder and chief executive of Legitify, noticed the gap in the market in 2020. She was at an incubator in Stockholm thinking about launching new start-up when she needed to get a document notarised for personal reasons.

“I thought I can find something online to do this,” she said. “I was searching and didn’t find anything. I knew the market was disrupted in the US because they had pushed for a change in the law and I just assumed it was already available.”

A European Union directive came into play in 2019, which allowed EU countries to legislate for digital processes, but countries had been slow to adopt such measures. However, when the pandemic hit governments saw the importance of making the change to ensure transactions completed.

Lutaj, who comes from a finance background and had experiences with fintechs, began discussing the idea with Arko Ganguli, another member of the incubator, who had experience in the legal sphere.

“It was a serendipitous moment when we just realised there was a market need here,” she said.

The digital platform, which was revamped in September last year, has a cohort of notaries on its system, which it sources and onboards. This means that when a company or person logs on to the platform they schedule a meeting, have an audio-video session with the notary through their device and then they receive their documents.

Legitify has over 1,100 clients which include startups, small and medium enterprises, larger businesses and individuals. While some come for one-off transactions they are trying to build consistent partnerships and have recently launched business plans.

Going forward the company wants to tailor the product for specific sectors to ensure they have the best user experience. This includes financial services, legal services, transportation, maritime and healthcare.

Legitify is also starting to integrate its system directly into its client’s workflow by offering software.

“If there is a company that has a process, or a flow, where either their internal teams or their outside customers may need the authorizations, we can integrate our solution into their flow,” Lutaj explained. “So it's a much more smoother process.”

Another big plan for Legitify is enabling electronic notarisation, with a partnership due to be announced soon. At the moment the process happens online, but the actual stamping happens with a physical stamp. As some countries have allowed for electronic authorisation through qualified electronic signatures, the platform is now going to offer a fully remote capability.

“We have a rich product roadmap for the year. There are new features that we want to add and really expand that product base,” Lutaj said.

“Legal tech is fascinating,” she added. “If we think about the legal field it’s been so traditional, paper-based and in-person for so long. Over the next 10 years it’s going to change drastically so we are really excited about that.”

“We started with notarisation, which is really niche and specific but to keep building on that as we come across more customer needs we will grow our focus to broader legal processes. Although notarisation will remain our bread and butter.”

This Making It Work article is produced in partnership with Enterprise Ireland