August 4, 2025 -- Issue #352

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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Exit/M&A

◾ Reporting from the LawSites blog by Bob Ambrogi:
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“Although the deal has not been publicly announced by either company, LawSites has learned that the payroll and human resources company PayChex has acquired the legal technology company SixFifty, which in recent years has heavily focused on helping businesses automate employment law compliance and documentation.
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“SixFifty was owned by the Silicon Valley law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati as a technology subsidiary, as well as by its CEO Kimball Dean Parker, the Utah lawyer who helped found it, and by other employees of the company.”
​https://www.lawnext.com/2025/07/in-undisclosed-deal-payroll-company-paychex-has-acquired-legal-tech-company-sixfifty.html​

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Fundraising

◾ Once the “backbone” of early-stage fundraising, the sub-$5 million seed round is shrinking and this article, from VC Tom Tunguz, explains why.
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“The numbers tell a stark story. Sub-$5M deals declined from 62.5% in 2015 to 37.5% in 2024. This 29.5 percentage point drop fundamentally reshaped how startups raise their first institutional capital.”
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Very good read if you’re thinking of doing an early stage raise. https://tomtunguz.com/death-of-small-seed-round/​

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◾ Over at Artificial Lawyer, Richard Tromans has put up a post asking if we’re in a legal tech fundraising/investing “bubbles?” Get his analysis of the question at the link below (as always with Richard, it’s a well-considered analysis).
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“New data from Raymond James suggests that despite some very chunky investment rounds recently, e.g. Harvey, the legal tech funding market as a whole is not really in a bubble scenario…yet, or at least that’s this site’s view after considering the data.”
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“In short, there are what we might call ‘ambitious’ moves [in legal tech fundraising/investing] that look a bit ‘frothy’, but the broader trend is simply that of a market that is expanding and maturing, so larger rounds are expected.”
​https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2025/07/09/a-legal-tech-funding-bubble-not-exactly/​

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◾ Legaltech News reporting here:
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“Legal tech startup Caseflood.AI, which offers an AI-powered, human-assisted intake solution for law firms announced on Wednesday that it raised $3.2 million in funding from a number of investors including Acquisition.com, Y Combinator, Rebel Fund, Four Cities Capital, Elevation Capital, Amino Capital, Valia Ventures and Pioneer Fund, as well as a handful of angel investors.
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“A press release announcing the funding noted that Caseflood.AI will leverage the investment to support its research and engineering team and further develop its voice AI agent.”
​https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/07/30/legal-intake-startup-casefloodai-announces-32-million-investment/​

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◾ More fundraising reporting from Legaltech News:
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“On Wednesday [July 30, 2025], no-code legal process management platform Streamline AI announced that it raised $8.6 million in series A funding led by Blumberg Capital. The funding round also saw participation from Scribble Ventures, Acronym Venture Capital, Great Oaks Venture Capital and Tribeca Venture Partners.
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“Founded in 2020 by former Google product lead Julian Wimbush and Kathy Zhu, a former AGC of DoorDash, Streamline AI aims to provide a centralized workflow that connects various applications and software in one place for in-house legal professionals.”
​https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/07/30/in-house-workflow-management-startup-streamline-ai-raises-86-million-in-series-a-funding/​

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◾ From Legal IT Insider, a post about private equity investment in legal tech companies - expectations to be set in negotiating with PE companies, the positive signaling-to-customers effects that a PE investment offers and more:

"However, one law firm head of innovation told me recently that he regards PE backing as essential metric of reliability and sustainability. PE investment enables companies to scale fast, which, given the competitive landscape, can make the difference between success and failure, not least because law firm decision making is debilitatingly slow –an important conversation for another time. PE can also bring in better financial discipline and muscle, which is sometimes a big missing piece of the pie.

"The legal sector has long been cautious about PE, but as GenAI and platform investment reshape the industry, whether we like it or not, that caution will have to be balanced with pragmatism."

An entire article can be found at this link: https://legaltechnology.com/2025/08/01/private-equity-does-legal-need-to-just-grow-up/​

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Partnerships/Business Development​
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◾ “Lehi, UT – July 31, 2025 – NetDocuments, the #1 trusted intelligent document management system (DMS) for legal professionals, is excited to announce new partnerships with Legora and Harvey through its innovative ndConnect partner program.”
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The complete press release can be accesssed at this link: https://network-295075.mn.co/posts/88444497?utm_source=manual​

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◾ Report from Artificial Lawyer:
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“Here’s one for those of you on hols and sitting on the beach in Malaga…..CLM company Bigle and PwC in Spain have formed a strategic alliance.
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“Under the agreement, PwC Tax & Legal will ‘act as a strategic partner in the diagnosis and redesign of legal processes, while Bigle provides its software suite to execute, automate and monitor those processes’.”
​https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2025/07/29/pwc-clm-bigle-form-strategic-alliance/​

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Product Development

◾ Learn from the LawSites blog about Litera’s product release plans as ILTACon looms on the horizon. In addition to its launch last week of Lito AI agent (“. . . an AI legal agent designed to function as a virtual team member integrated into the company’s Litera One interface”), Litera brings GenAI tooling to Kira.
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“. . . today, Litera announced the integration of generative AI capabilities into Kira, its due diligence and contract review platform, designed to support greater efficiency and more-informed decision making for legal professionals.”
​https://www.lawnext.com/2025/07/ahead-of-iltacon-litera-announces-ai-agent-lito-in-litera-one-and-new-gen-ai-capabilities-in-kira.html​

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◾ As the LawSites blog reports about a feature release from Spellbook:
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“Fine tuning was an alright technique two years ago, but today lawyers don’t want a tool fine-tuned on all of law. They want a tool that deeply understands their own preferences.
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“Today, we’re launching Library at Spellbook—an answer to this plea and a way for transactional lawyers to power AI with their own knowledge and precedents, helping it draft and review like they do.”
​https://www.lawnext.com/2025/07/introducing-spellbook-library-contract-ai-that-learns-from-your-precedents.html​

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◾ The Legtech News legal tech rundown is here: https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/08/01/legaltech-rundown-kira-integrates-with-litera-ai-suffolk-law-taps-mass-judge-for-legal-innovation-clinic-and-more-/​
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Purchasing/Using Legal Tech

◾ From Legaltech News:
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“On Tuesday, e-discovery company Reveal announced that it will be expanding its Reveal Private Deployment group (RPD) and continue to offer private deployment services including on-premises, hybrid and cloud e-discovery deployment. Reveal also announced it will be expanding its private deployment team.
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“Reveal CEO Wendell Jisa told Legaltech News that Reveal was motivated to maintain its private deployment offerings through RPD to provide flexibility to its customers even though the broader e-discovery industry has pulled back from on-premises deployments.”
​https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/07/29/reveal-doubles-down-on-on-premise-e-discovery-deployments-with-new-hire-/​

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◾ From the July 30, 2025 press release that IP solutions provider, Questel, just issued:

"Questel, a world leader in intellectual property solutions, officially released its global 2025 IP Outlook Research Report ‘Pathways to Productivity: AI in IP’ to the public today.

"Including insights from 500+ IP professionals worldwide, Questel’s second annual Report revealed that 77% of IP organizations are enthusiastic about adopting AI within their law practices and 76% of respondents believe AI adoption creates a competitive advantage. 58% already actively use AI solutions for IP, citing positive impact on their work. Nearly half (46%) already use AI solutions for IP at least once a day. Only 5% expressed reluctance to use AI."
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The entire press release, one that's most worthy of a full read, can be accessed at this link: https://network-295075.mn.co/posts/88378076?utm_source=manual​

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◾ From the LawSites blog:
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“Querious, which was one of two legal tech startups to win this year’s Startup Alley at ABA Techshow in a first-ever tie, has been approved by the Alabama State Bar as a member benefit.
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“The approval means that Alabama bar members will be able to subscribe to Querious at a discounted rate. The bar has more information here.”
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I’ve long maintained that US state bar associations are fertile grounds for legal tech sales and marketing.
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Much more at the article linked below (including what Querious does): https://www.lawnext.com/2025/07/alabama-state-bar-approves-conversational-intelligence-app-querious-as-member-benefit.html​

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◾ From Legaltech News:

"Legora has become one of the fastest expanding generative AI companies in the legal industry.

"Just this week, Mishcon de Reya became the latest firm to announce a firmwide roll-out of the product to fee earners. Today, like rivals such as Harvery AI and Springbok AI, it has become an emblem of the frenzied onboarding of AI-capable legaltech across the industry.

"Law.com tracks the history and uptake of the rapidly growing startup, beginning with its foundation in Stockholm as 'Leya' in the spring of 2023."https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/07/31/a-timeline-how-legora-has-become-one-of-the-biggest-names-in-legal-ai/?kw=A+Timeline:+How+Legora+Has+Become+One+of+the+Biggest+Names+in+Legal+AI&utm_position=1&utm_source=email&utm_medium=enl&utm_campaign=morningupdate&utm_content=20250801&utm_term=ltn&oly_enc_id=6788E2252056B4A&slreturn=20250801074843​

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Startup Management

◾ For our UK-based reader - from Founders Forum Group and The London Stock Exchange:
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“Looking for liquidity without going public? Find out everything you need to know about the London Stock Exchange’s new Private Securities Market.
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“As a tech founder, you’ll be familiar with the liquidity and capital raising challenges that come with running a private company. The London Stock Exchange’s new Private Securities Market – built on the UK Government’s PISCES (Private Intermittent Securities and Capital Exchange System) framework – offers a secondary market solution designed with companies like yours in mind.” https://ff.co/private-securities-market/​

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◾ From Artificial Lawyer:

"[The Artificial Lawyer] site recently looked at Cooley’s AI Principles, in effect their legal AI manifesto. Now we take a look at Big Four firm KPMG and how it is approaching AI and applying it to the legal sector.

"The giant professional services firm brands its approach as the ‘KPMG Trusted AI Principles’, which is their over-arching philosophy for the use of AI. (After this we’ll take a look at what they do in terms of the legal sector). So, first, the principles:"

See those KPMG principles and read the rest of the article here: https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2025/08/04/ai-manifestos-kpmgs-trusted-ai-principles/​

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