Rethinking Capital: How a Nonprofit Can Provide the Fuel for Tech Breakthroughs

For too long, legal technology startups have struggled with a critical gap in the funding landscape: they need data, infrastructure, and validation to build their MVPs, yet traditional venture capital is often unavailable until after they’ve already proven their value. This creates a systemic barrier to innovation—especially for solutions focused on access to justice, regulatory reform, dispute resolution, and AI-driven legal insights.
But what if mission-driven organizations could de-risk legal tech innovation by providing early-stage capital in the form of data, services, and infrastructure? This panel will explore the concept of catalytic capital—high-impact, patient, and risk-tolerant resources that help startups build, scale, and succeed.

To explore these issues this panel brings together:
– Executive Director and co-founder of Free Law Project—a nonprofit that provides open legal data and tools to fuel innovation.
– Founders of PreDicta and Dispute Resolution—two legal tech startups that leveraged catalytic capital to develop their MVPs, attract investment, and scale their businesses.
Together, they will share how nonprofit-driven capital enabled these startups to build groundbreaking products, secure customers, and drive industry transformation.

Attendees will gain:
– A new perspective on early-stage legal tech funding—beyond venture capital and traditional grants.
– Actionable insights on how nonprofits, investors, and startups can work together to accelerate justice-driven technology.
– Real-world case studies on how catalytic capital fills funding gaps, supports risk-taking, and drives long-term impact in legal innovation.

This session will challenge outdated funding models and show how catalytic capital is a game-changer for legal tech startups and impact-driven investors alike. Join us to discover how mission-aligned investment can reshape the future of legal technology—and how you can be part of the movement.