Luminance's Generative AI-for-law raises $40M Series B

Luminance has raised $40M for its Series B round. The company wants to make good on a prediction that has bounced around legal circles since ChatGPT's release: that LLMs will be able to take on much of paralegals' work.

The round was led by March Capital, with participation from National Grid Partners and existing investors including Slaughter and May.

Luminance’s legal LLM automates the generation, negotiation and analysis of contracts and other legal documents — from flagging non-standard clauses in any incoming contract in Microsoft Word and suggesting preferred language to automatically identifying areas of non-compliance and key terms in executed agreements. Their software facilitated the first use of AI at London’s highest criminal court, the Old Bailey, where it allowed counsel to cut the time spent reviewing evidence by four weeks.

Its customer base spans 600 organisations in 70 countries, from global manufacturers such as Koch Industries, Hitachi and Yokogawa to insurers including Liberty Mutual and pharmaceutical giants such as LG Chem. This funding round will be used to expand the footprint of the Cambridge-born company in the U.S.

March capital controls over $1.65B+ in capital over 4 funds and across 25+ market-leading technology companies.  March invests in companies that advance digital transformation of cloud-based software, automation, AI & IT infrastructure.

Eleanor Lightbody, Luminance’s CEO, said:

The past 12 months have seen huge technical achievements from our Cambridge R&D hub. Developments such as ‘Auto Mark-Up’, which brings agreements into line with gold standards in a click, and AI-powered tools for non-legal teams to independently negotiate contracts, make Luminance the most advanced legal LLM available today. This latest round of funding will help us to bring our technology to new markets, strengthen our foothold in the United States where Luminance now generates over one third of its revenue, and solidify our position as the clear market leader in this space.

Hyun Koo, Partner at March Capital, added:

We invest in AI-native companies solving large, mission critical problems. Given the inefficiencies and complexity that exist today in legal workflows, we immediately saw the potential for Luminance to drive efficiency with its industry leading LLM. Luminance’s breadth of enterprise customers speaks to its capabilities, and we are thrilled to partner with their highly technical and growth-minded team to help build a successful, leading and global legal AI company.