Generative AI is a buzzword that aims to transform all sectors. The legal sector is not left behind untouched by this advanced technology. Working in this sector is Robin AI, a London-based startup offering an AI-powered legal copilot.
Now, Robin AI has snapped $26 million in a Series B funding round led by Temasek, a Singaporean investor who previously invested in Zilingo and Stripe. Other investors that participated in the round include QuantumLight, AFG Partners, and Taavet Hinrikus’s Plural, an existing investor who led the $10.5 million round last year.
The funding will allow Robin AI to capitalise on the strong momentum it is witnessing by expanding its team in the US and opening an office in Singapore to expand into the Asia Pacific. The investment will also be used to expand its existing team of AI and machine learning experts.
AI-driven contract editor
Robin AI was founded in 2019 by Richard Robinson, a lawyer at Clifford Chance, and James Clough, a machine learning research scientist at Imperial College. The company leverages the power of generative AI to automate and speed up the process of drafting and negotiating contracts. In addition, it quickly extracts information from across entire contract repositories through a simple search.
Its AI-driven legal copilot, available as a Microsoft Word add-in, is claimed to cut the time it takes to review contracts by 85%, allowing businesses’ legal teams to move faster, save money, and invest their time more strategically.
Partnership with Anthropic
Last year, Robin AI became Anthropic‘s launch partners for the release of their Large Language Model (LLM), Claude. Notably, Claude 2.1 allows much longer prompts of around 150,000 words in each prompt than other LLMs. This is a key benefit for analysing long and complex legal documents.
Robin AI operates a unique hybrid model that combines the Claude LLM with its proprietary contract data from over 2 million contracts and machine learning techniques to read and understand contracts. An in-house team of legal professionals, or lawyers-in-the-loop help to further refine the model to ensure high levels of quality and accuracy.
CEO and co-founder Richard Robinson, who has relocated to New York to support the US expansion, said: “We’ve seen incredible customer traction with what we believe is the smartest AI contract copilot on the market. But this is just the beginning. We are building the AI platform for the legal sector – a service that deeply understands every aspect of the legal function, from drafting contracts and researching case law to explaining legal concepts – our AI will help people tackle every legal task. This will help level the playing field between big and small law firms and help more people access legal services. This investment will help us to realise this vision.”
Carina Namih, Partner at Plural, said, “Everyone is wondering how AI lands usefully. Robin is delivering AI products to an astonishing volume and range of customers – serious businesses across sectors that are using it today to transform how they work. And they’ve only scratched the surface. I have backed this team since inception and couldn’t be more bullish about their ability to win the global legal market.”
Ilya Kondrashov, CEO at QuantumLight, said, “Robin AI has built a great team and product and has developed an impressive record of acquiring major enterprise accounts in a short period of time. As an AI-driven VC firm, we immediately saw the potential of Robin AI’s system to drive tremendous efficiency in the field of legal services. We are extremely grateful for the opportunity to come along with Richard, James, and the wider team at Robin AI on their exciting journey to realise the potential of AI and build one of the most significant companies in the AI applications space.”
Ivan Ong, Partner at AFG Partners, said, “Robin AI is addressing a central issue in the legal industry, and in a short time has positioned itself as a market leader in a space that has significant growth potential. As a global fund backed by investors from financial services, we believe that there should be a better way to manage the growing number of legal contracts between stakeholders. Robin AI is highly applicable across our network of investors and ecosystem partners and we look forward to scaling the company deeper into Asia and globally. We are pleased to join Temasek and other seasoned investors as we support Robin AI on its growth journey.”
