Japan-founded contract review platform LegalForce has raised ¥13.7bn yen (US $101m) in a series D round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with the participation from Sequoia China, Goldman Sachs, and existing investors including World Innovation Lab(WiL), Mizuho Capital, and Mitsubishi UFJ Capita.
LegalForce uses natural language processing technology to review contracts by type, detecting risky or missing clauses. Its ‘LegalForce Cabinet’ extracts key information such as title, party name, and contract term, creating a database to help automate the renewal process and access key data.
The 2017-founded company says that the funds will be invested in accelerating recruitment, research and development, and sales and marketing in order to realise its mission to ‘manage all contract risks anytime, anywhere.”
Stephanie Hui, global co-head of growth equity at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, said: “A digital revolution is taking place in the legal market with the embrace and application of technology by law professionals to increase productivity and mitigate risk. Through its proprietary AI software and sectoral expertise, LegalForce is positioned to capitalize on and lead that disruptive transformation in Japan.”
The total amount of equity raised since LegalForce’s seed round now amounts to around ¥17.9 billion yen (over $132m).