After beginning life as a hackathon project to assist asylum seekers, Formally, a legal collaboration platform, raised $2.3 million in pre-seed funding, with Bessemer Venture Partners leading the round, the company announced Monday.

With a focus on access to justice, Formally allows users to easily find, hire and work with attorneys. The objective is to help match attorneys with clients navigating the United States' immigration system.

The investment will allow the startup to expand and begin building out new service areas such as legal compliance.

The pre-seed funding round was led by Bessemer with participation from BBG Ventures, Unshackled Ventures, Ulu Ventures, Graph Ventures and Dorm Room Fund, along with contributions from angel investors, particularly Kiwi Camara, the CEO of legal discovery platform DISCO.

Amélie Vavrovsky, Formally's founder and CEO, has firsthand experience working through the country's immigration process, which involves finding attorneys able to handle outdated software and tasks such as applying for employment visas and filing personal protective orders.

"It's heartbreaking to see policies fail because they aren't reaching the people that need them most," Vavrovsky said in the announcement. "Our work in asylum and immigration helped us understand how to create effective tools that make even the most daunting legal processes accessible. Witnessing yet another refugee crisis in Ukraine reinforces our belief that creating compassionate immigration experiences for everyone is more important than ever."

Vavrovsky earned degrees in international relations and Middle East studies at Brown University. She is a dual-degree graduate student in tech and cyber policy and sustainable design at Stanford University, where she also serves as the lead graduate researcher at its Digital Civil Society Lab. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, she offered remote legal assistance to refugees and asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Thousands of asylum seekers have used the startup's products, according to the announcement, with its most recent product helping international founders of companies to apply for visas.

Additionally, the investors see the platform as a means to alleviate the excessive workloads of immigration attorneys.

"Lawyers went to law school to learn how to apply legal judgment to the issues in front of them, not to get bogged down in lengthy and time-consuming processes that could be automated through technology," Camara said. "Formally understands how to help lawyers focus on critical tasks and is applying technology in exciting ways that will help to transform the practice of law."

"The Formally team has already made an immense impact on people's lives as they set out to revolutionize the legal buying and collaboration experience," Bessemer partner Bob Goodman said in a statement. "I look forward to seeing the continued impact Formally will deliver as the company scales and continues to transform the legal industry."

--Editing by Vaqas Asghar.