Two leading estate agencies are part of a fund-raising pool that has today helped find £1.2 million in seed funding for a ground-breaking conveyancing disruptor.

JLL’s proptech subsidiary Spark and London estate agency LiFE Residential’s tech arm have invested the money alongside cash from leading early-stage fund Seedcamp.

The start-up is Orbital Witness founded by Ed Boule and Will Pearce, which has been one of the key participants in the Land Registry’s attempts to inject tech into the home buying process and drastically reduce transaction times.

Obital Witness uses tech to help conveyancers and solicitors ‘de-risk’ property purchases automatically by spotting potential problems and therefore speeding up transactions by giving title and local searches a ‘clean bill of health’.

Weeks to days

Its service is one of the key planks in the emerging potential in the Land Registry’s Digital Street project which, it is claimed, will soon reduce property transactions from weeks to days.

Orbital Witness’s tech is being piloted by leading conveyancing firms including Mishcon de Reya, Clifford Chance, Reed Smith and Macfarlanes.

“A key part of our technology strategy is to use cutting edge tools to deliver client services faster, better and more efficiently,” says Nick Kirby from Mishcon de Reya.“Orbital Witness does exactly that – it allows us to provide meaningful insights to our clients in an instant.”

Jonathan Werth, Managing Director of LiFE Ventures (left), says he has been watching Orbital Witness for several months and “really struggled to find a reason not to invest”. “We understood the product from the beginning and the value it brings to all parties involved in the property transaction process.”