SAN FRANCISCO & WALNUT CREEK, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–ASG LegalTech, a portfolio company of Alpine Investors, today announced that it has acquired Headnote, a novel online payments platform providing compliant ePayments and AR management for law firms of all sizes. Headnote is the latest addition to ASG LegalTech’s platform of rapidly growing legal Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) products including PracticePanther, Bill4Time and MerusCase.
This deal marks the 28th acquisition for ASG, the 4th for ASG LegalTech, and the first payments platform for the ASG portfolio.
“We are excited to expand into the payments space with the acquisition of Headnote,” said Soumya Nettimi, CEO of ASG LegalTech. “ASG LegalTech and our suite of products have been at the forefront of creating industry leading, cloud-based practice management software for 14 years. By bringing payments in-house, we’re creating the first ever software led payments platform in the legal industry. What Sarah and team have built is an exceptional payments solution with the most modern and compliant technology available. Our acquisition of Headnote will allow us to expand the features and benefits of our existing practice management products to better serve the legal industry.”
Headnote, founded in 2016 by Sarah Schaaf, Thornton Schaaf and Matt Crampton and backed by investors including NFX and Uncork Capital, is a payment solution tailored for attorneys. Unlike other payment solutions used in the legal industry, Headnote was designed by an attorney herself (Sarah Schaaf), allowing the product to fill a gap mainstream providers can’t. Headnote has infused this expertise with the industry’s most modern and secure payment technology and a world-class user experience – helping law firms reduce payment processing fees by 35% and get paid 70% faster than the industry average of 94 days.
Sarah Schaaf, CEO and Co-founder of Headnote, will join ASG LegalTech as GM of Payments where she will continue to lead payments-related initiatives across the collective portfolio. “We are excited to join the ASG LegalTech family and bring our innovative, transparent, and compliant payments system to the suite of ASG LegalTech products,” said Schaaf. “ASG and ASG LegalTech are looking at vertical SaaS companies differently than anyone else in the space. Soumya and team understand the power of financial technology when applied to legal tech software. I can’t think of a more exciting place for our payment tech to have a significant impact than ASG LegalTech.”
In addition to announcing the acquisition, Headnote and ASG LegalTech are preparing to launch their first fully integrated, all-in-one payment solution, a reimagined and optimized version of PantherPayments. To learn more about PantherPayments, visit the PracticePanther website.
About Headnote
Headnote is an industry leader for compliant ePayments and Accounts Receivables Automation. Their unique blend of features helps attorneys get paid 70% faster than the industry average with full compliance under the ABA, IOLTA, and all 50 state bar associations at the lowest fees in the legal industry. Headnote replaces outdated and cumbersome manual tracking with personalized AR dashboards operating in real-time to manage payments, analytics, and automated collections. Headnote drives increased efficiency and profitability where it matters most – getting paid.
About ASG LegalTech
ASG LegalTech is a novel and rapidly growing legal technology business that offers a suite of product solutions to allow lawyers to automate their firms, get more done in less time, and focus on what they do best: practicing law. ASG LegalTech operates as a single business consisting of three leading practice management solutions – PracticePanther, Bill4Time, and MerusCase – and one payments solution, Headnote. ASG LegalTech’s software products have the ability to scale in different niches of the market, and the shared resources, talent, and expertise accelerates growth across the portfolio. ASG LegalTech is part of ASG, a portfolio company of Alpine Investors, and has ~80 employees based in New York, Florida, Washington, California, and other locations across the US.
About Alpine Investors
Alpine Investors is a people-driven private equity firm that is committed to building enduring companies by working with, learning from, and developing exceptional people. Alpine specializes in middle-market companies in the software and services industries. Its PeopleFirst strategy includes a CEO-in-Residence program where Alpine partners with CEOs first and places them into companies as part of the transaction. This provides a distinct solution for situations where additional or new management is desired post-transaction. For more information, visit http://www.alpineinvestors.com/.
Contacts
Megan Land
ASG
mland@alpinesg.com
