Family office backs divorce platform

Family office CEAS Investments has provided seed finance to Hello Divorce, a fintech platform that makes it easier, and cheaper, to achieve marital separations.

CEAS is owned by Leslie Alexander, a billionaire who once backed the Houston Rockets basketball team and invests in early-stage projects which are often diverse, or socially aware.

Alexander started his career as an attorney, then became a successful bond trader running his investment firm. He dabbled in real estate and backed First Marblehead, which pioneered the securitisation of student loans.

Hello Divorce reckons it can achieve the same results as lawyers, in a third the time, for a range of advisory services. It encourages its clients to avoid the courts, wherever possible, in contrast to other divorce startups that help clients find a good lawyer or assist lawyers to become more efficient. 

CEAS’ investment chief Mike Wohl has invested in various deals in sectors ranging from data management to security. CEAS funds are an investor in sport and music ticket agency SeatGeek, backed by several family offices.

CEAS has earmarked $25 million to invest in new companies, according to its website, and, so far this year, it has participated in five seed, or early stage, funding rounds.

Hello Divorce is led by a team comprising females, led by Erin Levine, a family law attorney. It seeks to guide clients through the complications, and endless form-filling, as events grind on. Divorce is a miserable process, and sympathetic advisers deserve their fee. Whether they need to be lawyers is less clear. 

Hello Divorce typically charges $2,500 per client, against the $15,000 to $20,000 billed by lawyers, although these are a fraction of the charges incurred for contested cases involving high-net-worth investors. The process can also impose an emotional cost and tear entire families apart.

Its latest funding round has seen Hello Divorce raise $3.3 million, taking its total haul to $5.3 million. In a statement, Levine said: “With this funding we will expand access to an easier, kinder and less expensive pathway to divorce.” She wants to develop new family law opportunities and roll out the service across the US.

Her leading backer is Artemis Fund, a diversity investor. VC investor Lightbank was founded by Eric Lefkofsky, co-founder of e-commerce platform Groupon and, more recently, biotech company Tempus. Other investors include Jack Newton, the head of Clio, a legal technology firm; Chaos Ventures, led by former Jefferies investment banker Justin Smith and Pitbull Ventures, run by Brad Zions, a serial backer of tech applications. Institutional investors are represented by mutual insurers Northwestern and Credit Union.  

Hello Divorce reckons it can achieve the same results as lawyers, in a third the time, for a range of advisory services. It encourages its clients to avoid the courts, wherever possible, in contrast to other divorce startups that help clients find a good lawyer or assist lawyers to become more efficient. 

It has often been tough for online services to dislodge the legal profession. In 2017, Justin Kan, founder of streaming service Twitch, launched a tech-driven cut-price legal service called Atrium and raised $75 million. Atrium folded in 2020. 

According to one analyst, Atrium did well when advising clients on one-to-one, but failed to win converts to a more lucrative platform service. “Clients will always value the personal touch,” he said. 

Hello Divorce is seeking to compete by knowing its niche, saving money, offering direct advice to families during separation, and beyond. It will be interesting to see how it develops.