A UK startup founded by serial entrepreneurs has raised £2 million in seed funding to build what it describes as Britain’s first AI-native regulated law firm.
Keith, which plans to seek authorisation from the Council for Licensed Conveyancers rather than the Solicitors Regulation Authority, will launch in Q3 2026 with residential conveyancing as its initial practice area.
The funding round was led by Backed VC, with participation from Breega and angel investors. Both venture firms have prior legal technology investments—Backed supported legal tech platform Legl, while Breega was a Series A investor in identity verification company Thirdfort in 2022.
The Commercial Proposition
The company’s core technology comprises a network of specialised AI agents handling document review, drafting, client communication, and workflow management. Human oversight occurs at regulatory checkpoints, with qualified conveyancers reviewing and approving outputs.
According to co-founder Andy Shovel, a fee-earner at Keith should initially manage 500 files simultaneously—approximately five times the typical caseload at traditional firms.
“The technology broke the link between taking on more work and having to recruit staff to handle it,” Shovel told Legal Futures.
Keith projects that 80% of traditional legal work can be automated under this model. Critical functions including fund transfers will initially remain human-controlled, with the company acknowledging that regulators may require additional oversight points beyond what operational necessity demands.
Market Context
The UK conveyancing market presents a significant opportunity for technology-driven disruption:
- 530,000+ property transactions collapse annually, frequently due to process delays and opacity
- Average transaction time has increased 37% since 2019, reaching 4.1 months by 2025
- Fall-through rates nearly doubled from 16% (2022) to 29.8% (2024)
- Direct costs of failed transactions totalled £1.01 billion in 2024
- The UK legal market represents approximately £54 billion in annual revenue, yet conveyancing remains largely untransformed by technology
Keith claims it will reduce transaction times by 70%, even accounting for delays caused by parties on the other side.
Regulatory Strategy
The choice of CLC over SRA regulation is deliberate. Shovel described the CLC as “the better option for the sort of disruptive and cutting-edge technologies that we’re hoping to introduce.”
The CLC’s regulatory framework permits licensed conveyancers to act for both parties in a transaction, subject to strict conditions including informed written consent and representation by different authorised individuals within the firm. This flexibility is unavailable under standard SRA rules.
The Legal Services Board’s most recent report on regulatory standards gave the CLC the highest overall rating among frontline regulators. The CLC was also the first designated Licensing Authority for Alternative Business Structures in England and Wales.
Keith intends to seek SRA regulation when expanding into other practice areas.
Client-Facing Technology
The firm’s client interface centres on a 24/7 AI service agent accessible via phone and WhatsApp. The company describes this agent as “almost indistinguishable from a human operator”—capable of answering questions, providing real-time transaction updates, and executing actions instantly.
Administrative tasks that consume substantial conveyancer time—client education on processes, chasing counterparties, routine correspondence—will be handled by AI agents operating within what Shovel characterises as “strict parameters” that flag issues for human review.
Founding Team
The founding team brings an unconventional background to legal services:
Andy Shovel and Pete Sharman previously founded THIS, a market-leading plant-based food brand. Both stepped back from that venture approximately a year ago.
Sam Tucker, who leads product development, previously founded Common Surface, a hybrid scheduling platform.
Eddie Goldsmith serves as strategic advisor and non-executive director. Goldsmith is former chairman of the UK Conveyancing Association and founded a prominent conveyancing firm in the 1990s, providing regulatory and industry expertise.
Shovel’s motivation is personal. He attempted to purchase a house approximately a year ago and described the experience to Legal Futures as “catastrophic” and “a monumental shocker”—sleepless nights, unresponsive solicitors, and a problematic seller.
“I was blown away by how clunky the process was, and how no technology was being incorporated to help,” he said.
Technology Stack
In an interview with Artificial Lawyer, the company disclosed that while initial development used OpenAI models, Keith has recently shifted to Anthropic’s Opus and Sonnet models for better performance.
The platform centralises external service interactions—search providers, Land Registry, HMRC—via API, eliminating the multiple portals conveyancers currently navigate.
Industry Context
Keith enters an increasingly active market for AI-native legal services. Recent developments include:
- Garfield: The SRA approved its first AI law firm in May 2025, focusing on small debt recovery
- LawFairy: Approved in February 2026 for “deterministic-only” legal decisions on statutory threshold matters
- Lawhive: Recently raised $60 million and opened a New York office, combining AI with human lawyers across consumer legal work
The conveyancing sector itself faces structural pressures. By January 2026, only 3,425 conveyancers were registered with HM Land Registry—down from over 4,000 in 2022. Solicitor numbers in residential conveyancing have also declined, with just 10,724 practitioners in England and Wales as of January 2026.
What This Means for Practice
For conveyancing practitioners, Keith’s emergence signals several developments:
- Competitive pressure on fees: The company plans to price at “the lower end of the market”
- Technology expectations: 24/7 availability and real-time updates may become client expectations
- Regulatory evolution: The CLC’s openness to technology-driven models may influence broader regulatory approaches
- Caseload benchmarks: If Keith’s 500-file projection proves viable, current capacity assumptions face challenge
The government’s October 2025 home-buying reform consultation, targeting four-week reductions in typical transaction timelines, provides policy tailwind for technology-driven approaches.
Keith represents a test case for whether AI-first legal service delivery can achieve regulatory approval, client adoption, and sustainable economics simultaneously.
