April 22, 2024 -- Issue #286
Hi, Charlie Uniman here, host of Legal Tech StartUp Focus ("LTSF"), the online community for everyone involved with legal tech startups. You're reading the latest digest of articles, opinion pieces, and other thoughts posted during the past week at the community.
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Fundraising
🔳 “UK-based legaltech startup Lawhive, which offers an AI-based, in-house “lawyer” through a software-as-a-service platform targeted at small law firms, has raised £9.5 million ($11.9 million) in a seed round to expand the reach of AI-driven services for “main street” law firms.” https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/15/lawhive-raises-12m-to-expand-its-legaltech-ai-platform-for-small-firms/
🔳 “Upstage Co. Ltd., an artificial intelligence startup that develops document processing large language models, today announced that it has raised $72 million in new [Series B] funding to expand its capabilities.
“Upstage offers a document processing engine and a large language model, Solar, which can be tailored to specific needs in e-commerce, healthcare, finance and legal industries by enterprise customers. Combined, the two products allow customers to quickly scan physical and digital documents, and then ask questions about them using natural conversational language.” https://siliconangle.com/2024/04/16/document-ai-startup-upstage-raises-72m-global-expansion/
🔳 From the StrictlyVC newsletter: "Claimscore, a startup based in Pompton Lakes, NJ, whose automated system for evaluating and managing claims in class action settlements aims to identify fraudulent submissions, raised a $3.2 million seed round led by ROC Venture Group." More at the link below: https://www.prweb.com/releases/claimscore-secures-3-15-million-in-seed-funding-from-roc-venture-group-302119289.html
LegalEd
🔳 What’s the relationship between the idea of “peak oil” and the idea of “peak legal inefficiency?” Here, Richard Tromans of Artificial lawyer writes compellingly about that relationship and deeply explores what the term “peak legal inefficiency” means and what understanding that term means for the process of, and pricing for, the delivery of legal services. https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2024/04/16/have-we-reached-peak-legal-inefficiency/
🔳 Reporting on recent GenAI-related scholarship by two law professors, David Hoffman from U of Penn law school and Yonathan Arbel from U of Alabama law school:
$$ Quote: “This is the transformative idea: If judges accept large language models as a valid way to interpret contested contract terms, parties drafting contracts could preemptively use those models to get ahead of predicted or potential disputes by letting the models decide the outcome. That would eliminate much of the uncertainty around contracts, making litigation rare.”
More: “ ‘Of course, even uniformity between powerful models cannot decide cases,’ Hoffman and Arbel write. ‘The point, rather, is to illustrate the value of LLMs as a convenient check against overconfidence, and a spur to greater reflection.’ ” https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/chatgpt-will-come-for-partners-work-in-contract-law-says-prof
Product Development
🔳 “Thomson Reuters has launched a global Developer Portal giving access to over 100 APIs, providing tax, legal, risk and fraud professionals with tools to more easily integrate their workflows with the company’s technology, data, content and insights.” https://www.lawnext.com/2024/04/thomson-reuters-launches-developer-portal-giving-access-to-over-100-apis-for-legal-tax-risk-and-fraud.html
🔳 “vLex announced a major expansion of its Vincent AI platform with the launch of Document Analyze, a suite of generative AI-powered tools to respond to litigation and transactional documents, and unveiled vLex Labs, an initiative through which the company will co-develop custom AI products with leading global law firms.” https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2024/04/16/vlex-expands-vincent-ai-with-document-analyze-launches-law-firm-ai-co-development-lab/
🔳 Why should legal be the only vertical that has all the fun?
“In addition to introducing three new skills for legal and tax professionals in the U.S. and U.K., Thomson Reuters announced plans to roll out the CoCounsel generative AI assistant across every professional line it serves, including risk, fraud and media.” https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2024/04/17/thomson-reuters-expands-cocounsel-to-all-business-segments-adds-new-gen-ai-legal-capabilities/
Purchasing/Using Legal Tech
🔳 Can GenAI help law firms in the AmLaw Second Hundred punch above their weight and compete more effectively with larger firms? This article answers “yes” to that question and provides testimony from Second Hundred firm personnel in support. https://www.law.com/dailyreportonline/2024/04/15/law-firm-leaders-say-gen-ai-can-level-playing-field-between-large-and-smaller-firms/
🔳 “GCs see adopting technology and more efficient processes as crucial to freeing up their time so that they can stay on top of risk management and strategically advise fellow colleagues and the board, FTI Consulting and Relativity say in a report.
“General counsel increasingly see investing in legal ops as crucial to free up their time to be effective leaders in an era where workloads are increasing but budgets are not.” https://www.law.com/corpcounsel/2023/12/06/regulatory-tsunami-eroding-legal-departments-risk-preparedness/
Startup Life
🔳 Mat Rotenberg, who just sold his legal tech startup Dashboard Legal to Bloomberg, pens a heartfelt and insightful article about his startup journey. Enjoy. https://medium.com/@mathew.rotenberg/i-sold-my-legaltech-company-to-bloomberg-thoughts-from-the-week-after-2bacf58bb033
Startup Management
🔳 This article asks (and answers): When should you stop calling your company a startup?
“The short answer is: Outside of going public or being that 50-year-old law firm, there really isn’t a reason to stop calling your company a startup until your company is no longer raising outside money or is old enough that the connotations stop being positive.”
More form the article here: https://ehandbook.com/when-should-you-stop-calling-your-company-a-startup-1826f2af7db2
🔳 “‘I have unfortunately started with this tactic … only to build a product searching for a business model instead of a business that offers a product,’ writes Cheek in his new book, ‘Disciplined Entrepreneurship Startup Tactics.’
“In the following excerpt, Cheek, executive director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, offers several points for startup founders to consider when transitioning from product design to development — and when sourcing the early engineers who will help make that transition.” https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/startup-tactics-how-and-when-to-hire-technical-talent
🔳 Interesting lessons on early startup planning from the founder of Zapier (brought to us by VC firm First Round Capital).
“Wade Foster, founder and CEO of Zapier, shares his contrarian takes on building a billion-dollar company — from fundraising advice, go-to-market strategy, and hiring mistakes.” https://review.firstround.com/the-not-so-cookie-cutter-approach-to-company-building-8-lessons-from-zapier/
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