The Expert Institute Receives Growth Investment from Spectrum Equity
By Lawdragon News | January 16, 2018 | Press Releases, The Expert Institute
New York, NY – January 16, 2018 – The Expert Institute (“TEI”), an online platform for law firms to find and connect with expert witness candidates, announced today that it has received a significant growth investment from Spectrum Equity, a leading growth equity firm focused on the information economy. The investment represents the first institutional capital in the company and positions TEI to further scale operations, broaden its areas of practice and pursue business development opportunities through product expansion.
Voted the #1 Expert Witness Provider of 2018 by The National Law Journal and 2017 by the New York Law Journal, TEI has helped over 4,000 law firms optimize the process of finding and connecting with expert witnesses on more than 30,000 cases. TEI maintains a global network of over 3 million experts to provide clients with access to highly qualified candidates across all practice areas and industries, for cases involving medical malpractice, personal injury, general liability, mass torts, real estate, energy, securities, patent litigation, etc. Each expert is comprehensively screened and vetted, including analyses of professional sanctions, admissibility challenges (Daubert / Frye), license verification, and background checks.
“We are excited to partner with Spectrum Equity given their extensive experience in scaling subscription information services companies, breadth of relevant portfolio companies, and depth of network,” said Michael Talve, CEO of TEI. “This partnership marks an important milestone for TEI’s development, and we are eager to execute upon our shared strategic vision for the company.”
Mike Farrell from Spectrum Equity, said, “TEI has filled a much-needed void in the market, providing a unique and highly valuable service to leading law firms by streamlining the historically disjointed and unstructured process of finding expert witnesses. TEI is uniquely positioned to continue to serve its customers through a highly differentiated and cost-effective service. We are thrilled to partner with Michael Talve and the rest of the TEI team as they continue to provide a world-class service to leading law firms.”
Jake Heller from Spectrum Equity, added, “It’s been exciting to see how Michael Talve and his team have taken TEI from concept to high-growth category leader with no outside, institutional capital. These characteristics of capital efficiency and bootstrapped leadership are what we look for in our portfolio companies, and we are eager to support TEI management on the next phase of growth and success.”
In conjunction with the transaction, Mike Farrell and Jake Heller from Spectrum Equity will join TEI’s Board of Directors, along with Jennifer Kitchen, former SVP of Research at CoStar Group and Chief Content Officer at RainKing, a recently exited Spectrum Equity portfolio company, and Jim Emling, an operating advisor to Spectrum Equity and former President of Zywave.
Morrison Cohen provided legal advisory services to The Expert Institute, while Latham & Watkins provided legal advisory to Spectrum Equity. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
About The Expert Institute
Founded in 2011, The Expert Institute is a technology-driven platform for connecting qualified experts in every field with lawyers looking for technical expertise, consultative support, expert witness testimony, and case specific guidance. The Expert Institute combines a vast database of pre-screened experts with a talented case management team capable of custom recruiting experts to fit the specific needs of our clients.
About Spectrum Equity
Spectrum Equity is a leading growth equity firm providing capital and strategic support to innovative companies in the information economy. For 25 years, the firm has partnered with proven entrepreneurs and management teams to build long-term value in market-leading software, information services and Internet companies. Representative investments include Ancestry, Bats Global Markets, Definitive Healthcare, GoodRx, Seamless Grubhub, Lynda.com, SurveyMonkey, Verisys and World-Check. For more information, visit www.spectrumequity.com.
