Latest news with #Luminance
Bloomberg
2 hours ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Bloomberg Daybreak: Europe 06/09/2025
Bloomberg Daybreak Europe is your essential morning viewing to stay ahead. Live from London, we set the agenda for your day, catching you up with overnight markets news from the US and Asia. And we'll tell you what matters for investors in Europe, giving you insight before trading begins. Today's guests: Eleanor Lightbody, CEO of Luminance & Carolyn Dawson, Chief Executive of Founders Forum Group and Tech Nation. (Source: Bloomberg)
Business Insider
26-05-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Legaltech startups have raised over $1 billion this year. Here are 10 companies to watch.
Legaltech startups are thriving, raising over $1 billion in funding this year. These companies leverage AI to streamline legal work, attracting significant investor interest. Despite a slowing funding market, AI-driven legaltech firms continue to secure investments. Law is having its ChatGPT moment. In recent years, a torrent of startups has emerged that use artificial intelligence to strip the drudgery from legal work. In a slowing funding market, these companies are cashing in on the AI hype. Funding to companies in the legal and legaltech industries has crossed $1 billion so far this year, according to Crunchbase data and Business Insider's estimate based on recent financings. This list highlights a select few legaltech startups that raised capital in 2025, sorted from most to least total funding. Harvey Founded: 2022 Total funding: More than $500 million The hype: In a crowded category, Harvey stands in a league of its own. Lawyers at eight of the 10 highest-grossing US law firms use the platform, sending its annual recurring revenue to more than $70 million in April. Harvey's rise hasn't gone unnoticed. "Lots of people flock to an opportunity once it's clear," said Sarah Guo, a managing partner at Conviction and Harvey investor, "but Harvey is 10X the next biggest competitor — it has breakthrough momentum." The dish: Harvey's success is fueling a growing list of competitors, and some of them look pretty similar under the hood. The company is betting that it can edge out rivals by molding the product to the client. If customization is the moat, the question becomes: how does it scale? Luminance Founded: 2015 Total funding: $165 million The hype: Luminance is seeing soaring demand for its legal contract review and drafting platform. The British-born legaltech said its core corporate product offering has grown annual recurring revenue 6x in the past two years. Driven by the company's revenue growth, investors put in another $75 million in Series C funding in February. The dish: While most legaltech startups build on general-purpose models from OpenAI, Google, or Meta, Luminance uses a patchwork of models, including a number of proprietary models designed in-house, to handle different legal tasks as required. Training a state-of-the-art model can provide a competitive edge, but it also demands a tank of capital. Legora Founded: 2023 Total funding: $120 million The hype: Legora is taking on Harvey with its solution to help bogged-down lawyers speed up legal research and drafting, and gaining ground. In two years, it's added 250 clients in 20 markets, including big-league law firms like Cleary Gottlieb, Goodwin, Bird & Bird, and Mannheimer Swartling. To fuel its growth, General Catalyst and Iconiq led an $80 million round for Legora in May, valuing the company at $675 million. The dish: In a crowded market, Legora will need to find ways to stand apart from competitors. The company is betting that the strength of its product and its ability to tightly tailor the tool to firms will continue to attract major names. Trouble is, Harvey's making the same pitch. Eudia Founded: 2023 Total funding: $105 million The hype: Eudia's custom agents promise to shrink months of legal grunt work down to days, or even minutes. Rather than chasing law firms, Eudia is laser-focused on in-house legal teams, betting that enterprises will adopt technology more readily than firms afraid of software nibbling at their bottom line. The company exited stealth in January with $105 million in funding. The dish: Since Eudia's launch, investors have showered founder Omar Haroun with cash, eager to get in on what they hope will be his next breakout. He sold his last startup, Text IQ, to legal and compliance heavyweight Relativity in 2021. But pedigree isn't performance, and it remains to be seen whether Haroun and Eudia can deliver. Supio Founded: 2021 Total funding: $91 million The hype: Rajeev Dham, a partner at Sapphire Ventures and Supio investor, says the company is building the Cursor for plaintiff law firms. The platform parses medical records, police reports, and expert opinions, then lets lawyers build medical chronologies, draft briefs, and search their files using a chatbot. Fresh off a $60 million round, Supio has quadrupled its revenue run rate and size of its customer base over the past year. The dish: EvenUp may be three years ahead of Supio in the market, but Dham argues that's exactly why Supio has the upper hand. It engineered its entire platform around artificial intelligence from day one. Still, Supio has to contend with a competitor with over a thousand personal injury law firm customers and more than twice the funding. Eve Founded: 2020 Total funding: $61 million The hype: Eve helps plaintiff firms automate away tedious tasks and resolve cases faster. The company added more than 200 law firm customers, from personal injury to employment law, over the last year. Early investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and Menlo Ventures seem pleased with its progress; Eve raised $47 million in a January Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz. The dish: Plaintiff lawyers, especially solo and small shops, are slow to adopt new tech unless it's proven, dead simple, and affordable. Eve may find its early adopters are tech-forward anomalies, not the norm. Spellbook Founded: 2018 Total funding: More than $30 million The hype: Zach Posner, managing director of The Legal Tech Fund and a Spellbook investor, says growth is ripping over at Spellbook, a contract drafting and review tool. Spellbook's annual contract value, which measures the average annual revenue it generates from a single customer contract, has risen for three straight years. It suggests lawyers see real value and are scaling up. The dish: This list highlights startups that have raised money so far this year. Spellbook's last round closed over a year ago, but we're including it anyway. The word on the street is that Spellbook is in talks to raise a Series B round. A person close to the company said the terms of the offering are still being negotiated. Paxton Founded: 2023 Total funding: $28 million The hype: While other legaltech startups court Big Law, Paxton is betting on the middle. Its platform targets small and midsize firms — an overlooked segment that helped drive a 14x jump in monthly recurring revenue last year, according to a company blog. The dish: Even though Paxton is targeting a different segment of the market, it still faces the challenge of convincing law firms to switch from their established systems. Law firms are notoriously risk-averse, and many will stick with what they know. Theo Ai Marveri Founded: 2023 Total funding: $3.5 million The hype: Due diligence is the bane of a young attorney's profession. To help, Marveri 's platform sucks up all of a corporation's documents and lets users analyze and query their contents. Marveri, which counts Elon Musk's lawyer Alex Spiro as an advisor, emerged from stealth in May with $3.5 million in funding. Masha Bucher's Day One Ventures, Bessemer, and a syndicate of early users participated in the deal. The dish: Marveri is going toe to toe with a Goliath of legaltech. Backed by over $160 million, Hebbia creates software for white-collar professionals to help with contract review and due diligence. Marveri will need to crush on product and customer service to woo law firms away from their existing systems.
South China Morning Post
08-04-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Chinese dissident artist's video shown on Hong Kong billboards; gallery says it was conned
At 7.30pm Hong Kong time on April 1, the dissident Chinese-Australian artist known as Badiucao revealed to his 55,500 Instagram followers that he had managed to pull off a stunt in the city. Advertisement His video posted to the social media platform shows the artist's face, with his signature untamed beard, appearing in black and white on two large outdoor billboards for about four seconds. His mouth moves silently as traffic and pedestrians stream past. The Instagram post explains what he is mouthing, in English: 'You must take part in revolution.' It is a line taken from a 1937 essay, 'On Practice', by late Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong that is also the title of his new graphic novel, written by Emmy-nominated journalist Melissa Chan. The short video clips, filmed from the street, are undated but the locations of the LED billboards are given: 33A Argyle Street and 6-12 Sai Yeung Choi South Street in Mong Kok – just about the busiest spots in Hong Kong's most densely populated district. The artist gave us false information in order to be admitted to the exhibition and I find it really low Art Innovation Gallery, Milan, Italy The Instagram post explains that Badiucao submitted the video work, titled Here and Now, under the pseudonym Andy Chou to the Milan-based Art Innovation Gallery for inclusion in its Hong Kong public art project 'Luminance'. Advertisement According to an earlier statement by the gallery, 'Luminance' was 'an immersive exhibition' timed to coincide with Art Basel Hong Kong, the international art fair that ran from March 26-30.
