Elena Donio, Axiom CEO. Elena Donio, Axiom CEO. (Courtesy photo)

Permira, the European private equity firm known for its investments in professional services businesses, has made a "significant" investment in legal staffing and services provider Axiom and will be the majority owner of the company, according to Axiom senior vice president David Pierce.

Axiom will also no longer pursue public funding through a previously planned IPO, Pierce confirmed.

Axiom CEO Elena Donio and the rest of its management team will stay in place and continue to lead the company, the company said in a press release.

"We are thrilled to have the backing of an experienced partner like Permira," Seattle-based Donio said in a statement. "They have a tremendous track record of supporting tech-enabled, services-led businesses like ours, and together we can accelerate growth, deepen our service proposition for clients and provide even greater career opportunities for the lawyers on our platform."

A pioneer in the alternative legal staffing space, Axiom bills itself as the "leader in specialized on-demand legal talent" and boasts a roster of over 2,000 attorneys. It currently operates in North America, the U.K., Central Europe and Asia Pacific.

The company split into three separate entities earlier this year: Axiom, in which Permira is investing; Knowable, a contract management platform; and Axiom Managed Services, a managed solutions platform.

As for why Axiom broke the companies off, Pierce said management thought it best to give each entity its own mission and mandate, and that was better served having the companies separate.

Axiom, which had filed an IPO application in February of this year, will now rely on the investment from Permira and won't pursue public funding. After doing its diligence on which financing mechanisms were best for the company, Pierce said Permira provided the best option.

"We are more excited about Permira as an investor than about getting private funding," he said. "They know the space well and share our vision for what this can be."

Axiom has emerged in recent years as one of the most sizable players among alternative legal service providers.

"You can line us up against any competitor," he said, "but our treating our clients and our attorneys with equal regard makes us uniquely suited."

Permira, for its part, has made investments in legal services before. The PE firm purchased a controlling share in online legal service provider LegalZoom for $200 million in 2014.

According to 2018 press release by Permira, LegalZoom doubled in revenue and enhanced its growth rate with "exceptional profiability" in the four years since the Permira investment.

This led to more investment and some focused attention from the legal industry on just how big a player the online company really could be. In 2018, Francisco Partners and GPI Capital led a group that pumped an additional $500 million investment into LegalZoom and a revised valuation of $2 billion.

Some more traditional legal names were involved in the Permira/Axios coupling. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom acted as legal counsel for Permira while Cooley advised Axiom. Barclays provided committed financing and was advised by Weil, Gotshal & Manges.

Read More

Beyond a Payout: What to Make of Axiom's Plans to Go Public

Axiom to Go Public, Applying for IPO and Spinning Off Two Businesses