Munich Startup: What does Silberfluss do? What problem do you solve?
Lukas Ballweg, Silberfluss: We’re building an automation platform that enables law firms to handle more cases. Many law firms face the challenge of not finding enough legal assistants to grow or to manage their existing cases.
Our solution supports these law firms in case management. An example of this is handling an accident at a traffic law firm. From capturing and categorizing the facts of the case to drafting various letters and documents to insurance companies and police, right through to coordinating with expert witnesses and other parties involved, Silberfluss takes over many tasks that would otherwise consume a lot of time for law firm staff.
After a few inquiries from the public sector, we realized that our solution also fits well there and solves a problem. In the medium term, we want to support public administration and the judiciary in processing procedures faster and in a more citizen-centered way. Initial pilot projects are already in the planning stages.
Pilot projects for public administration and the judiciary
Munich Startup: But this already exists, doesn’t it!
Lukas Ballweg: Unfortunately not. What sets us apart from other process automation solutions in the law firm sector is that we support law firms in complete case management across different legal areas. Existing solutions that integrate into the law firm ecosystem typically only help with a specific niche task.
In the public sector, what sets us apart is that we map both the front office (the contact point with applicants) and back office (internal administrative processes) in one solution, and everything can be configured via a no-code interface. This offers the decisive advantage that digital end-to-end processes can be implemented faster and more easily without media breaks, and not just a single process step is digitalized.
Munich Startup: What’s your founding story?
Lukas Ballweg: We’re a four-person founding team and mostly know each other through the Stiftung der Deutschen Wirtschaft (sdw). Through an sdw founder initiative, we developed the first steps toward Silberfluss. I myself studied computer science with a minor in law and have already worked on several projects in the legal tech sector. This is also how the idea for Silberfluss came about. We’ve been working on Silberfluss for over two years now. For about a year, we’ve been working full-time on Silberfluss since most of us finished our studies.
The question of commitment and risk
Munich Startup: What were your biggest challenges so far?
Lukas Ballweg: In the initial phase, it took time for us as a team to align on what our long-term goals, expectations, motivation were and how much commitment and risk we were willing to take on. It wasn’t an easy process because our ideas were extremely far apart. But it has now made us a perfectly functioning team.
The past years have been primarily an immense learning process in which we repeatedly reach our limits. In particular, feedback from the initial phase taught us to dive deeper every day into the needs and challenges of our customers and to really deliver added value.
Silberfluss: “We are satisfied”
Munich Startup: How is business going?
Lukas Ballweg: We are satisfied. Since we won our first pilot customers a year ago, we have been growing continuously. Currently, we work with a low double-digit number of law firms. Our customers achieve time savings of up to 90 percent in case management in the mass proceedings area through Silberfluss. Through partnerships, we expect several hundred law firms to be added this year.
Munich Startup: How have you experienced Munich as a startup location so far?
Lukas Ballweg: When applying for the Exist founder grant, we had the choice of applying through Heidelberg University or the Hochschule München. Ultimately, we decided on Munich. That was a deliberate decision. Because Munich has a strong startup and investor network, and we had also received intensive support from the Hochschule München before. Munich is really making an effort in startup promotion. Besides, the mountains are closer to Munich, which was an additional personal reason for our choice of location.
Munich Startup: Public transport or bike?
Lukas Ballweg: Clearly bike, but only if there’s still a parking space available on the U-Bahn.
