London, UK. January 30th, 2020: ThoughtRiver, the market leader in intelligent legal pre-screening, has announced today that it has been selected for the exclusive Tech Nation accelerator programme, ‘Upscale’, and will be coached over the next six months by some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs and leading startup founders.
Tech Nation, the UK network for ambitious digital tech entrepreneurs, today revealed the thirty fast-growing tech start-ups that have been selected for the fifth cohort of the globally renowned Upscale programme. ThoughtRiver, who recently announced a key partnership with professional services giant PwC, was chosen from more than 100 applications to the programme.
ThoughtRiver CEO Tim Pullan commented:
“We’re delighted to have been included in Upscale 5.0. The whole ThoughtRiver team and I are hugely excited at the networking, exposure and learning opportunities on offer via the programme. From a legal services perspective, we are at the forefront of a huge wave of innovation in the UK and globally, so Upscale is an ideal programme to be involved with, giving us the chance to unlock further opportunities in a dynamic market.”
Upscale participants will benefit from frank mentoring from scale coaches who will conduct workshops and events over a period of six months, helping the cohort to tackle challenges involved in scaling their businesses to the next stage. Scale coaches on past programmes have included Brent Hoberman, co-founder of Lastminute.com; successful investor and Lovefilm founder Saul Klein; One Fine Stay co-founder Greg Marsh and Lesley Eccles, founder of FanDuel.com.
Liam Ward, Upscale’s Programme Lead commented:
"We look forward to being part of ThoughtRiver’s growth journey over the next 6 months and seeing how the team continue to revolutionise the legal sector." Tech Nation’s mission is to support the UK’s most ambitious tech entrepreneurs. We’re delighted to announce the Upscale 5.0 cohort and welcome 30 of the UK’s most exciting and fast-growing tech companies onto the programme, as they work through key scaling challenges.”
The news comes in line with recent momentum, as ThoughtRiver confirmed that they had signed German logistics company DB Shenker, Legal services disrupter Legal Zoom, and American rental car giant Avis Budget Group as new customers in 2020. Supporting this is a key new hire Kristin Shevis, VP, North America Sales and Success. Shevis has more than 20 years’ industry experience and will lead ThoughtRiver’s efforts in North America to help businesses leverage technology to improve the efficiency and consistency of their contract processes.
Pullan concluded:
“The six-month programme will be a key support in ThoughtRiver navigating the challenges of our next stage of rapid growth. Challenges like hiring and retaining talent, maintaining culture while scaling, and expanding into new markets are all very much on our radar, and UpScale and key hires like Kristin will help better equip us to meet them.”
ThoughtRiver, who’s investors include leading technology law firm Taylor Vinters, Crane Ventues, and Local Globle will be attending LegalWeek in New York next week from the 4th- 6th February. Attendees will be able to meet the ThoughtRiver team at the company’s Hilton suite from 1pm-6pm on Thursday 4th and 9am-6pm on the 5th and 6th.