Rasa Legal Secures $5 Million to Accelerate Nationwide Record-Clearing Platform

New updates have been reported about Rasa Legal.

Rasa Legal has raised $5 million in late seed financing to scale its technology-driven criminal record clearance services across the U.S., positioning the company for a transition from proof-of-concept to national expansion. The round was led by Rethink Education, with participation from Social Finance, Halogen Ventures, the Richard King Mellon Foundation, and other investors focused on workforce access and economic mobility.

The new capital will be used to deepen the leadership bench, speed product development, and broaden Rasa’s geographic footprint beyond its current operations in Utah, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. Founded by attorney and former public defender Noella Sudbury, Rasa uses an automated, mobile-friendly eligibility tool and streamlined legal workflows to help the roughly one in three Americans with a criminal record determine if they qualify for sealing or expungement under state law.

Since launching its platform in September 2022, more than 26,000 people have used Rasa’s tools to analyze their records, and over 5,000 cases have been cleared, providing tangible evidence of product-market fit and operational scalability. The company’s Pennsylvania entry, initially focused on Pittsburgh, was a key factor in attracting backing from the Richard King Mellon Foundation, which targets initiatives that enhance regional economic opportunity.

Investors frame Rasa’s model as infrastructure at the intersection of justice, workforce participation, and education, citing record clearance as a lever to increase job access, wages, and housing stability. Internal and external data indicate that individuals who clear their records are significantly more likely to secure job interviews and see wage gains exceeding 20% within a year, suggesting meaningful downstream impact for employers and local economies.

Rasa’s technology and impact have drawn national recognition, including awards from the American Legal Technology Awards and attention from the American Bar Association, reinforcing its positioning as a leading platform in the record-clearance segment. The company has also piloted partnerships with employers and community organizations, including fair-chance hiring collaborations, to connect users not only to legal relief but also to jobs, education, and health-related resources.

Sudbury, who previously led Utah’s Clean Slate campaign that automated record clearance for hundreds of thousands of residents, views the latest funding as validation of Rasa’s scalable approach to access-to-justice. With nearly 100 million Americans carrying a criminal record, management is signaling a strategy centered on rapid state-by-state expansion, deeper integrations with workforce and education partners, and further use of AI and automation to reduce costs and increase throughput in record-sealing workflows.