Moritz

Legal services for startups and scale-ups have historically been expensive, slow, and structured around the needs of large corporations rather than fast-growing companies. When a startup needs to negotiate a significant contract, close a funding round, or expand into a new international market, it faces a binary choice: pay the fees of a top traditional law firm it cannot afford, or settle for lower-quality legal support. Moritz was built to offer a third path. The Norwegian startup, backed by Y Combinator, does not sell software to existing law firms — a choice that sets it apart from nearly everything else in the legaltech market. Moritz operates directly as a law firm: an AI-enabled practice that combines artificial intelligence and expert lawyers to deliver high-quality legal services at structurally lower costs and faster turnaround than traditional top firms. It is the first entity of this kind in Europe. Early results are concrete: the firm has already supported over 100 companies on contracts totaling more than two billion dollars in aggregate value. These numbers are not just a proof of concept — they demonstrate that the model works at a level of real legal complexity, not just on simple or standardized agreements. The $9M pre-seed round, led by Y Combinator with participation from 20VC and Urban Innovation Fund, confirms investor interest in a model that challenges the cost structures of highly regulated professional services. The billing model is that of a law firm — for services, not software licenses — which means Moritz competes directly with traditional law firms, not with software vendors for lawyers. The target clients are startups and scale-ups in contracting, fundraising, and international expansion phases: exactly the moments when the quality of legal support is most critical and when the comparison with traditional top firms is most unfavorable for those without unlimited budgets. The broader implication is that in highly regulated professional services, AI will not simply make existing operators more efficient — it will create entirely new operators with radically different cost structures.