Former conveyancer raises £850,000 for onboarding tool

A former conveyancer has raised almost £850,000 for a new onboarding tool, including a grant of £292,000 from Innovate UK.

Chris Scantlebury, co-founder and director of ProConvey, said 2,200 conveyancing clients had successfully been onboarded since its launch in mid-July.

Mr Scantlebury, who qualified with the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives, said ProConvey was currently working with eight firms, one of them a top 10 conveyancer. The aim is to have over 100 firms on board by the end of 2025.

He explained that, having been at the “coal-face” of conveyancing for 10 years, he had specifically built a conveyancing tool, rather a general onboarding tool that had been adapted for conveyancing.

As well as onboarding clients automatically – including ID and anti-money laundering checks – the system collects property, owner, buyer, parties and transaction information for each case, and verifies all the parties. This allows it to provide a concise overview and create contract-ready packs.

Mr. Scantlebury said:

“We’re trying to take the administration and the phone calls out of the initial part of the transaction.”

ProConvey also has a customer support service to law firms if there were problems.

When he was a conveyancer, he said, he had to sort out any problems with digital onboarding solutions.

ProConvey was set up in February 2022 with co-founders and directors Manuela Fabris, a business adviser specialising in start-ups, and businessman Ryan Buckle.

It raised £292,000 from Innovate UK in October 2022, as a grant for the company’s start-up phase, followed by £250,000 from private investors in the company’s first funding round in March 2023 and a further £300,000 from investors last month.

Mr. Scantlebury said ProConvey did not need further funding rounds, as investors had promised to provide follow-on funding. Apart from the directors, the company has 10 staff, who all work virtually, with the aim being to set up a physical office by the start of 2026 at the latest.

ProConvey charges per case, with some law firms passing that cost to the consumer and others not.

He did not want the company to “scale as quickly as possible”, and was aiming for up to 10 more firms to use ProConvey by the end of this year and 96 more by the end of next year.

Mr. Scantlebury said that, by the end of next year, he wanted ProConvey to have a panel of conveyancers and its own quoting tool.

With the introduction of a requirement on sellers to provide upfront material information about their property, he expected them to have to pay their conveyancer an initial charge for preparing. He said the initial fee might help “flush out” sellers who were not serious.