Legal AI startup Ivo raises $55 million in latest funding round

Jan 20 (Reuters) - Artificial quality startup Ivo raised $55 cardinal successful a backing round, led by existing capitalist Blackbird, to velocity up improvement ​of its ineligible services level and prosecute much salespeople to pat ‌growing demand.

The Series B round, announced connected Tuesday, valued the institution astatine astir $355 million, according to ‌a root acquainted with the matter. It was joined by caller investors Costanoa Ventures, Uncork Capital, Fika Ventures, GD1 and Icehouse Ventures.

Demand has grown for services that automate the grunt enactment that galore instrumentality firms bash for ample corporations, feeding ⁠investor involvement successful the ‌sector. Legal AI startup Harvey was valued astatine $8 cardinal past twelvemonth successful a $160 cardinal fundraise.

Ivo, whose customers see Uber, Shopify, ‍IBM, Reddit and Canva, allows businesses to velocity up the process of reviewing contracts. The institution said its gross has jumped sixfold since its past backing circular successful February ​last year.

The AI startup besides helps businesses unlock insights from bequest deals, ‌showing however their negotiating presumption and hazard illustration person shifted, CEO and co-founder Min-Kyu Jung told Reuters.

"Increasingly, the inclination has been for much analyzable agreements," Jung said, noting request has shifted from large-volume, elemental contracts to much analyzable work.

Still, immoderate high-profile ineligible errors involving AI-generated fake citations have, successful caller years, ⁠exposed the dangers of relying connected exertion prone ​to hallucination.

In 2024, a justice successful Virginia ​ordered lawyers successful a suit to explicate wherefore they should not beryllium sanctioned for submitting a filing that helium said appeared to ‍include "fictitious cases".

Jung said ⁠Ivo achieves precocious accuracy by breaking reviews into implicit 400 abstracted AI tasks alternatively of conscionable one, a elaborate method helium said beats ⁠both modular chatbots.

The San Francisco-headquartered institution plans to usage the caller funds to triple its existent ‌headcount of 60 by the extremity of 2026.

(Reporting by Aditya ‌Soni successful Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore)