Nexl: The Business Development Platform for Law Firms

The legal industry is one of the world’s largest professional services markets, with global revenues in the trillions. Yet when it comes to technology adoption, it has tended to lag behind other industries. For decades, firms relied on legacy CRMs that were little more than static databases holding information that was stale, incomplete and used mainly to generate holiday card lists. Lawyers avoided them, marketers resented them, and firms saw little return.

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But competition has put pressure on firms to rethink technology and organization decisions. Winning new business now requires a disciplined approach to managing relationships, cross selling across practices, and expanding client accounts. Business development (BD) may not sit at the center of the organization, but it has never been more important. BD teams are expanding, budgets are increasing, and firms have begun to recognize that client growth must be a discipline in its own right. In a survey of more than 120 law firms in North America and the U.K. 60 percent said they expect BD headcount to grow over the next year¹.‍

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Enter Nexl. Founded by Philipp Thurner, Nexl is an all-in-one collaboration platform for mid-market and enterprise law firms that is redefining what CRM means in legal. Its “zero-entry” design automatically captures emails, meetings, and interactions that define client relationships, eliminating the manual entry lawyers hate.

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CRM has become a growing control point for the business of law and the foundation upon which firms manage their growth. Traditional systems failed because busy lawyers never updated them. Nexl flips that model by enriching relationship data automatically by marrying the CRM with the enterprise relationship management (ERM), transforming CRM from a passive repository to a hub where growth happens. It shows who knows whom, which clients are at risk, and where cross-sell opportunities lie.

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By owning the control point, Nexl also earns the right to expand. Beyond its core CRM, offering products like  project management and email marketing, with a roadmap extending into AI-driven insights and financial intelligence. Each step builds on the same foundation: a product customers praise for ease of use, thoughtful integrations, and responsive support. Adoption is already global, spanning ANZ, the Americas and EMEA, and once inside a firm, Nexl has the ability to expand quickly across practices and geographies.

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From this position, we see the opportunity for Nexl to evolve into the system of action for law firm growth, using its data gravity to power front-office workflows like event management, marketing automation, and experience management. Each new capability compounds the value of clean, comprehensive data, turning Nexl into the platform that drives the next generation of business development in legal.

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What sets Nexl apart is how well it works for the people who actually use it. Customers praise it as “a Swiss Army knife”, highlighting four things again and again: zero-entry CRM and ERM that lawyers don’t have to touch, nimble integrations with existing systems, collaboration tools that extend beyond marketing and into day-to-day workflows, and white glove support that makes adoption painless. In a market where legacy CRMs are disliked and underused, they aren’t nice-to-haves. They’re the main reason firms switch, stay and expand. As one law firm we spoke with put it: “Nexl makes my life so easy…[it’s] the modern solution.” ‍

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A Founder Building From Experience

Philipp Thurner built Nexl from inside the problem. Before founding the company in 2018, he led innovation initiatives for Gilbert + Tobin, one of Australia’s largest law firms. From that perch, he saw first-hand how lawyers and marketers struggled with legacy CRMs, and how little client knowledge ever made it into those systems. He also saw how frustrated they were with tools that created more work than they saved.

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That experience shaped Nexl’s DNA. Phil speaks his customers’ language and it shows up in both the product and the culture. Nexl doesn’t just ship features; it addresses pain points specific to law firms and delivers white-glove service to every firm it engages with. Some of the best customer conversations we’ve had highlight not only the quality of the platform, but also the responsiveness of the Nexl team. Simply put, “they know lawyers”. In a category notorious for poor adoption and low satisfaction, Phil has built something rare: a product that lawyers actually like to use, backed by a company their firms trust.

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Our connection with Nexl grew gradually through repeated touchpoints in our ecosystem. Phil and his team were already fluent in our Vertical SaaS frameworks, which meant we shared a common language from the start. That familiarity made it easy to align on the vision for Nexl’s growth and made the partnership a natural fit.

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What’s Next

This is our second investment in legal SaaS alongside Clio. The two are complementary: Clio anchors the control point in practice management for smaller firms, while Nexl owns the control point in business development at firms with 50+ attorneys. Together they reshape the legal technology stack.
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With this investment, Nexl is positioned to define its category and become the system of action for law firm business development. We’re proud to lead the Series B with a $23M investment, joining existing partners Shearwater and EVP, and to support Phil and the team as they build the next category leader in legal SaaS.

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Hear more from Nexl CEO, Philipp Thurner, and Tidemark's Dave Yuan and Andrew Walsh:

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¹ Source Calibrate Strategies survey of law firm Marketing/BD departments