Iphelion has 30,000 users, largely located across the UK and EMEA, with 20 of the UK Top-100 firms utilising their Template Management System ‘Outline’. This solution will complement BigHand’s existing Template Management Solution ‘BigHand Document Creation’, ILTA’s number one provider for Template Management.

The acquisition also includes Iphelion’s Proposals Automation solution ‘Pitching & Proposals’, which will extend BigHand’s product suite and will support linking both the Template Management and Matter Pricing solutions, to streamline the business development process within law firms.

Andy Driskell, Iphelion Managing Director and Simon Ashby-Crowe, Iphelion CTO, will join BigHand as full time employees and members of the senior BigHand team. Prior to co-founding Iphelion 13 years ago, Andy spent several years working within law firms and at OpenText, while Simon built his professional services experience working at KPMG.

Dan Speed, Managing Director of BigHand in the UK, commented:

“We were aware of Iphelion’s success in the Top-100 with their Template Management solution and the great reputation they have built in the market. With this acquisition, we can now start to consider the value of making the whole proposals building process more seamless – one that inevitably includes business development content, templates and pricing. It is a very exciting concept and will bring another exceptional offering from BigHand to the market.”

Andy Driskell, Iphelion Managing Director, commented:

“The Iphelion team are thrilled that our products and services have been so well received by our clients over the years and we are proud to be a part of their continuing success.  Iphelion's growing customer base and our own ambitious plans for the products gave us the challenge of shifting the business up a gear, while trying not to lose the personal touch we have tried to cultivate.  Our clients had always been very positive about their experiences working with BigHand, so when Dan and the team contacted us, we were excited to see where it might lead.  As the discussions progressed and we got to know the BigHand team a bit better, we got a greater insight into their strategy and growth plans and it quickly became apparent they had the infrastructure, resources and experience to help us deliver the next generation of our products.”

Ian Churchill, CEO of BigHand states:

“The vision for our legal business clear: we want to be the industry leader for our evolving range of solutions. We will continue to build and acquire technology that adds tangible and real business benefits helping our client’s transition to newer and more business-oriented ways of working in a rapidly changing landscape. I’m delighted to welcome Andy and Simon to the BigHand team.”

BigHand Pitching & Proposals will be available globally, while BigHand Document Creation will be primarily sold in the UK & EMEA, with BigHand continuing to develop and support BigHand Document Creation, the market-leading product in North America, in all other regions.

Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.