An increasing number of authorized professionals are embracing AI, surveys present. Per a current ballot from legaltech firm Clio, 79% of corporations used some type of AI for casework final yr, up from simply 19% in 2023. Regardless of some skepticism of the tech, in-house counsel has proven an curiosity, as properly, with one survey suggesting that almost half of attorneys suppose AI can yield value financial savings for his or her departments.
Legaltech suppliers are popping up left and proper to fulfill 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 had been on SpotDraft’s launch workforce. 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 advised follow-up work. A unified job heart reveals upcoming deadlines, renewal reminders, and particular person and workforce jobs, serving to orgs keep organized — no less than in idea.
One in every of SpotDraft’s AI-powered options, VerifAI, faucets AI to overview 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 experiences with them.
SpotDraft competes for purchasers towards distributors like LinkSquares, DocuSign-owned Lexion, Workday’s Evisort, and Filevine. Nevertheless it’s holding its personal, in keeping with Bijapur. SpotDraft at the moment has round 400 prospects, and the corporate’s year-over-year income grew 169% final yr.
“We believe 2025 will be an inflection point for team SpotDraft,” Bijapur mentioned. “We’re strongly committed to deepening the use of AI in the product to help legal teams unlock efficiencies and drive innovation.”
Traders appear happy with SpotDraft’s development trajectory. This week, the corporate introduced that it raised $54 million in a Collection 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 whole raised to only over $80 million, the brand new money can be put towards R&D, market growth, and rising SpotDraft’s 250-person workforce throughout New York — SpotDraft’s HQ — and Bengaluru.
Bijapur says that SpotDraft is growing an “agentic solution” to assist in-house counsel obtain “strategic business outcomes.” He wouldn’t reveal precisely what kind this answer will take, however unsurprisingly, AI is concerned.
“Traditional legal work is bound by the ‘dollars by the hour’ model, where inefficiency is often baked into the system,” Bijapur mentioned. “The agentic solution will interact with other tools that the in-house team uses. This will reduce the amount of time spent on learning and configuring tools, allowing the team to focus on strategic work.”
