AI property due diligence platform to enter residential market

An artificial intelligence-powered property due diligence platform that is popular in the commercial market has raised £7.5m to help expand into residential.

Orbital Witness, launched in 2018, has secured backing during a Series A round led by proptech investor Parker89 and joined by LocalGlobe, Outward VC, Seedcamp, Portfolio Ventures, and Realty Corporation.

The platform can automatically pull and analyse data from public sources including the Land Registry and local authorities in a matter of seconds. 

The company then uses generative AI and natural language process techniques to dissect lengthy documents, such as leases and deeds, providing legal experts with an overview of issues that might affect a property transaction as soon as they open a file.

The platform said it has powered more than 76,000 transactions and saved professionals more than 74m minutes that can instead be used to process a higher number of transactions or divert expertise elsewhere. 

The expansion into the home-buying and remortgage market will now bring the same benefits to residential conveyancing law firms, Orbital Witness said.

It is initially focused on helping conveyancers handle the increasingly complex area of leasehold transactions, giving them the capacity needed to advise a greater number of clients whilst maintaining speed and accuracy. 

Initial pilots suggest that the platform saves an average of 50 minutes per leasehold property transaction - meaning a residential conveyancing lawyer taking on 20 cases a month could save as much as 25 working days in a year.

Will Pearce, who co-founded the business along with Ed Boulle after seeing first-hand how much paperwork lawyers are required to handle during a property transaction, said:  “We transform how property due diligence is handled and empower legal experts to get an instant picture of everything they need to know about a property, enabling them to advise their clients quickly and with maximum clarity. 

“We’ve had unprecedented demand for our platform amongst commercial real estate specialists and we’re excited to bring it to the residential market. Right now, conveyancers are drowning in paperwork. We want to free them from that burden so they can spend less time trawling documents and more time proactively supporting their clients. 

“We’re grateful to our investors for making this next phase of our product development possible and we’re looking forward to working with them closely as we continue to grow.”

This raise, which brings Orbital Witness’ total funding to £11.5m to date and comes off the back of a year in which the company’s revenues doubled, will be used to expand its 40-strong team and build key partnerships across the residential property market. 

Ben Carroll, managing director at  conveyancing giant enact, added: “At enact, we’ve been defining and refining the process of delivering conveyancing services at scale for 20 years. 

“As the demands on conveyancing lawyers grow increasingly complex, we’re focussed on automating time-consuming steps in the conveyancing process to further our industry leadership. 

“Partnering with Orbital Witness to automate title checking for our leasehold work has the potential to simultaneously unlock capacity, speed up transactions and reduce risk. This is an important part of our strategy to lead the industry transition to automation.”