20 Aug Spotlight on dealcloser

As a company, we are always on the look-out to help and promote the best legal innovations that we come across. Towards the beginning of our journey, we partnered with dealcloser; a Canadian-based technology company, who have created a cutting-edge transaction management platform specifically for M&A lawyers.   This week we wanted to introduce you to the man behind the brand; Amir Reshef.

In a few sentences, describe dealcloser’s services.
dealcloser is a transaction management platform for corporate and tax lawyers that makes the transaction closing process more efficient, accurate and secure. Deals are complex and require intensive labor to carry out the many non-value added tasks that keep deals running smoothly. dealcloser automates or eliminates many of those non-value added tasks, allowing lawyers to focus on what matters: advocating and negotiating on behalf of their clients.

What motivated you to start dealcloser?
After working many very late nights and early mornings in a row on my first few deals, it seemed crazy that there wasn’t software to do many of the tasks I was doing. The deal process seemed manual on so many levels that it was ripe for innovation and digitization. It didn’t take long to figure out the features necessary for technology to help make the deal closing process better for everyone.

On top of that, I’d always wanted to work for a startup. I always thought I’d be employee number 10 or 100 at a startup. However, after experiencing the transaction process firsthand, it became clear that this was a potential problem for a startup to solve within the legal industry. As such, I was fortunate enough to co-found a startup and not just join one.

What drew you to Wicker Hamilton?
Our CRO, Teruel, met Wicker Hamilton at the Legal Geek Conference in the UK. From my first call with Matthew and Emeka, I was impressed with how professional they are, their vision and their drive. They are a pleasure to work with! If only we didn’t have a seven hour time difference to manage each time we could meet more often!

What was your most noteworthy accomplishment?
There are so many accomplishments I’m proud of that it’s hard to pick just one. From signing our first customer, to signing our largest customer to releasing our enterprise offering to raising capital—every step of this journey has been exciting and I’m very proud of everything our team has accomplished so far.

What are your predictions for transaction management in the future?
I predict that law firms are going to take even more interest in transaction management. Litigation has long had quite a few technology offerings, such as e-discovery, but corporate law hasn’t had nearly as much available. That’s changing with the emergence of AI contract review platforms, cloud-based entity management products and, of course, transaction management platforms. As law firms become more comfortable with technology in general, corporate law groups will gravitate towards transaction management when they understand how easy they make the closing process for lawyers and clients alike.

It’s also very hard to collaborate on a deal without access to a physical office unless you have technology like dealcloser. Corporate law groups that adopt transaction management platforms will be in a better position to deal with business interruptions such as COVID.

What are some lessons you’ve learned from operating during COVID?
As a tech company, we were already geared towards working remotely so there was no issue in making the switch there. One of our policies has always been that with internal team video calls, we always use cameras to add a personal touch to our remote meetings.

We learned that many firms had either no solutions for true remote work or incomplete solutions. Many firms that were interested in dealcloser had to pause as they sorted out basic work tools such as accessing documents remotely. Firms that were further ahead accelerated their subscriptions to dealcloser as they realized they needed the solution immediately.