Increasingly more authorized professionals are embracing AI, surveys present. Per a latest ballot from legaltech firm Clio, 79% of corporations used some type of AI for casework final 12 months, up from simply 19% in 2023. Regardless of some skepticism of the tech, in-house counsel has proven an curiosity, as effectively, with one survey suggesting that just about half of attorneys suppose AI can yield value financial savings for his or her departments.
Legaltech suppliers are popping up left and proper to satisfy the demand. SpotDraft, which focuses on constructing contract automation and administration software program, is one such relative newcomer. Based in 2017, SpotDraft sells instruments to assist in-house authorized groups simplify their contracting duties.
Shashank Bijapur, Madhav Bhagat, and Rohith Salim have been on SpotDraft’s launch crew. Bijapur, the corporate’s CEO, says that the concept for SpotDraft got here to him whereas he was an affiliate at Bengaluru-based regulation agency White & Case, which handled excessive volumes of company contracts.
SpotDraft’s platform makes use of AI to extract key particulars and clauses from contracts, offering summaries of modifications and steered follow-up work. A unified activity middle reveals upcoming deadlines, renewal reminders, and particular person and crew jobs, serving to orgs keep organized — at the least in principle.
One in all SpotDraft’s AI-powered options, VerifAI, faucets AI to evaluate contracts towards a particular information or template. One other, ClickThrough, retains all contract agreements in a devoted, centralized repository, and lets customers search throughout and make reviews with them.
SpotDraft competes for shoppers towards distributors like LinkSquares, DocuSign-owned Lexion, Workday’s Evisort, and Filevine. But it surely’s holding its personal, in accordance with Bijapur. SpotDraft at present has round 400 prospects, and the corporate’s year-over-year income grew 169% final 12 months.
“We imagine 2025 shall be an inflection level for crew SpotDraft,” Bijapur stated. “We’re strongly dedicated to deepening using AI within the product to assist authorized groups unlock efficiencies and drive innovation.”
Traders appear happy with SpotDraft’s progress trajectory. This week, the corporate introduced that it raised $54 million in a Sequence B spherical led by Vertex Ventures Singapore with participation from Trident Companions.
It most likely didn’t harm that the broader legaltech sector is seeing an infusion of funds after a tough few fiscal quarters. In 2024, VC funding in legaltch reached $2.6 billion, per funding database Pitchbook, up from a decline of lower than $1 billion invested in 2023.
Bringing the corporate’s complete raised to only over $80 million, the brand new money shall be put towards R&D, market enlargement, and rising SpotDraft’s 250-person workforce throughout New York — SpotDraft’s HQ — and Bengaluru.
Bijapur says that SpotDraft is creating an “agentic answer” to assist in-house counsel obtain “strategic enterprise outcomes.” He wouldn’t reveal precisely what kind this answer will take, however unsurprisingly, AI is concerned.
“Conventional authorized work is certain by the ‘{dollars} by the hour’ mannequin, the place inefficiency is commonly baked into the system,” Bijapur stated. “The agentic answer will work together with different instruments that the in-house crew makes use of. It will cut back the period of time spent on studying and configuring instruments, permitting the crew to concentrate on strategic work.”
