For about a year, I’ve been hearing that lawyers are using AI in droves. But it wasn’t until I talked to Jennifer Gore last week that I started to understand what that meant in practice.
“You can ask, ‘What are the bad facts in my case?’ and it’ll tell you all the issues that are going to be brought up by the other side,” said Gore, founder of Atlanta Personal Injury Law Group, talking about her legal AI platform of choice, startup Eve.
Gore is a plaintiff lawyer, representing everyday people with personal injury claims, from bicycle and car accidents to wrongful death lawsuits. She says Eve helps her keep track of the constant flood of facts in her caseload and speeds up how she processes cases. Cofounded in 2020 by David Zeng, Jay Madheswaran, and Matt Noe, Eve has been growing rapidly over the last eight months—the startup says its revenue has grown by 5x in that time, and that its customer base has grown by 800%. (Eve told Fortune it has more than 100 customers to date.)
“So much of this used to take 40 hours of work, and now you can do it in 15 minutes,” said Madheswaran. “An average attorney is managing probably ten cases every month. Think about it: How do you remember all these details about ten different people, multiplied by maybe ten different witnesses per person? It exponentially compounds.”
In some sense, Eve’s growth is representative of a sector-agnostic reality: People will pay for software that gives them back time, the greatest finite resource. And now, the company has reached a milestone, raising a $47 million Series A funding round, Fortune can exclusively report. Andreessen Horowitz led the round, with Lightspeed Venture Partners and Menlo Ventures also participating.
A company operating at the intersection of AI and law getting funded is not the surprise here, to be sure. The AI boom has facilitated a funding frenzy in the sector, as global VC deal value in the legal sector hit $2.7 billion in 2024, up by 170% year over year, according to PitchBook.
That said, I haven’t felt compelled to write about any of the legal AI startups until now since they usually left me feeling very “gold rush shrug.” But I was compelled by Eve’s customers and its express specialization in plaintiff law—plaintiff law can be thorny but is undeniably huge, with billions in settlements across the industry in 2023.
David Haber, a16z general partner, good-naturedly concedes that AI for law is “a very noisy market,” and on lots of levels, that’s for good reason.
“A lot of these LLMs are great at summarizing, extracting, and there’s maybe no more document-intensive industry than legal,” said Haber.
But having a neat tool isn’t enough to succeed, and never really has been, AI or not.
“The ability to craft a letter in minutes instead of 20 hours is incredibly differentiated versus a human paralegal,” Haber told Fortune. “But I think that alone isn’t purely defensible. What’s defensible is really owning that end-to-end workflow, becoming a system of record, becoming that system of action—characteristics that, by the way, we’d always look for when evaluating software investments pre-AI. AI is a great catalyst, a great tool for differentiation. It’s a way to wedge into the conversation and expand the TAM [total addressable market]. But ultimately the things that drive moats are largely the same.”
Ultimately, Haber saw the path forward for Eve, especially as he talked to customers. Mike Morse—founder of his eponymous plaintiff law firm that’s one of the largest in Michigan—has been using Eve across his practice for a few months. He’s impressed by the customer service and the feedback he’s been getting from his “power users.”
“They all started saying, ‘Eve is the future, Eve is the best one we’ve seen,’” Morse told Fortune. “For me, that’s the feedback I need to hear.”
Invoking “power user” is interesting here, since it’s a phrase I’m more frequently used to hearing in the context of consumer apps. But it’s interesting to think about Eve with a touch of that lens. Madheswaran may have been slightly caught off-guard by the rapid growth at Eve—he comically described having to go to OpenAI to ask for more access and capacity. But as a former Facebook engineer, he has long known what virality and consumer adoption looks like.
“One customer, in their [recent] onboarding, they invited more people than we’d originally intended,” said Madheswaran. “Now, 70% of those people are becoming daily active users. Typically, that’s something only consumer companies do, attract daily active users, but that’s the type of magic happening.”
See you tomorrow,
Allie Garfinkle
Twitter:@agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
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VENTURE DEALS
-LemFi, a Maidstone, England-based financial services provider for immigrant communities, raised $53 million in Series B funding. Highland Europe led the round and was joined by existing investors Left Lane Capital, Palm Drive Capital, and Y-Combinator.
- Nelly, a Berlin-based administrative automation platform for the healthcare sector, raised €50 million ($51.6 million) in Series B funding. Cathay Innovation led the round and was joined by Notion Capital and existing investors b2venture, Lakestar, Motive Ventures, and arc investors.
- Prophecy, a Palo Alto-based data copilot services provider, raised $47 million in a Series B extension. Smith Point Capital led the round and was joined by HSBC and existing investors Berkeley SkyDeck, DallasVC, Insight Partners, and others.
- Shippeo, a Paris-based multimodal transportation visibility company, raised $30 million in funding. Woven Capital led the round and was joined by existing investors Battery Ventures, Partech, NGP Capital, and others.
- qbiq, a Tel Aviv-based AI-powered architectural planning automation platform, raised $16 million in Series A funding. Insight Partners led the round and was joined by JLL Spark, 10D, Ocean Azul, and others.
- Reeco, a Miami-based AI-powered procure-to-pay platform for the hospitality industry, raised $15 million in Series A funding. Aleph VC led the round and was joined by Net Capital Ventures and Joule Ventures.
- HYPERLINE, a Paris-based revenue management platform, raised $10 million in a seed extension round. Index Ventures led the round and was joined by Adelie.vc and existing investors.
- Trustup, a Liège-Louvain, Belgium-based individuals and construction professionals connection platform, raised €5 million ($5.2 million) in funding from Rise PropTech Fund, Brick & Mortar Ventures, existing investors Noshaq and InvestSud, and others.
-Oh, a London-based digital AI agents developer, raised $4.5 million in seed funding from Tangent, Big Brain Holdings, Kosmos Ventures, angel investors, and others.
- Lupa, a London-based veterinary practice management AI platform, raised $4 million in seed funding from firstminute capital, 2100 Ventures, Vento, and angel investors.
- StepChange Labs, an Oakland, Calif.-based performance issues monitoring platform, raised $4 million in seed funding. Kindred Ventures and The General Partnership led the round and were joined by Ritual Capital and Liquid 2 Ventures.
- Arva AI, a San Francisco-based business verification solutions provider for banks and fintechs, raised $3 million in funding. Gradient led the round and was joined by Y Combinator, Amino Capital, Olive Tree Capital, and angel investors.
- Lyteflo, a Toronto-based electric vehicle sales solution provider, raised $3 million in seed funding. Diagram led the round and was joined by Whitecap Venture Partners and Amplify Capital.
- Parambil, a New York City-based AI-powered medical record analysis for the legal industry, raised $2 million in pre-seed funding. Daybreak Ventures led the round and was joined by angel investors.
PRIVATE EQUITY
- Eyelit Technologies, backed by Banneker Partners, acquired Adexa, a Los Angeles-based AI-powered supply chain and business planning solutions provider. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- insightsoftware, backed by Hg, TA Associates, and Genstar Capital, acquired JustPerform, a Singapore-based planning, consolidation, and reporting platform for businesses. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- RF Investment Partners acquired a majority stake in Valley Vital, a Richmond-based Vital Care Infusion Services franchisee. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Ruppert Landscape, a portfolio company of Knox Lane, acquired Lawnscapes, a Panama City, Fla.-based commercial landscaping services provider. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Stellex Capital Management acquired Industrial Construction Services, a Houston-based electrical services provider. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- SuperHero Fire Protection, a portfolio company of Hidden Harbor Capital Partners, acquired Central Fire Protection, a Birmingham, Ala.-based commercial fire safety services. Financial terms were not disclosed.
EXITS
- CBRE Group agreed to acquire Industrious National Management, a New York City-based workplaces solutions provider, from Riverwood Capital, for a valuation of $800 million.
- EMCOR Group agreed to acquire Miller Electric Company, a Jacksonville-based electrical contractor, for $865 million in cash.
- Airwallex acquired MexPago, a Huixquilucan, Mexico-based payment platform. Financial terms were not disclosed.
IPOS
PEOPLE
- ICONIQ Growth, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm, promoted Tengbo Li to general partner and Mariano Payano and Sruthi Ramaswami to partner.
