SmallClaims raises DKK 15 million to let AI agents run small business lawsuits

SmallClaims, a startup that uses AI to automate small business lawsuits, has raised roughly DKK 15 million in a seed round led by the Finnish venture fund Vendep Capital. The money will go toward developing the platform further and expanding across Europe, with the company planning to prove its model one country at a time.

The company's argument rests on unpaid invoices. According to SmallClaims, 47 percent of B2B invoices in Western Europe are paid late and about 6 percent end up as losses. It says claims worth more than 930 billion euros go unpursued through the courts every year. The reason is cost, not weak legal cases: a traditional small claim can require more than 15 hours of legal work and take over a year, so many creditors write off the amount. SmallClaims says three in ten SMEs give up on collecting such claims entirely.

CEO and founder Christian Olson says the legal system was built for a time when a lawyer handled every case, which makes sense for a million-euro dispute but not for a 15,000-kroner invoice. He says the company has built a machine that can pursue these cases at a fraction of the cost.

Vendep Capital partner Jupe Arala says Olson understands the problem both as a litigator and as someone who has led legal work at a growing company. He adds that the platform was built around AI from day one and that the team already wins more than nine out of ten cases.

Execution will be the hard part. Document requirements and court practice differ between countries, so the product must hold up in real courts, against real opponents and across jurisdictions. The stakes are high for small firms: according to the article, one in four bankruptcies in the EU is linked to late payment.