CLM Icertis has announced a ‘partnership’ with rival CLM Evisort, in what is a very unusual type of deal.
The companies said: ‘This strategic partnership enhances value from the Icertis platform, enabling new and existing Icertis customers to leverage Evisort’s contract-specific AI engine to accelerate the ingestion and analysis of contract data to deliver actionable insights and optimized workflows.’
I.e. this is not a merger, not yet anyway – or at least that doesn’t seem to be the case. In fact, it’s more of Evisort’s AI plus Icertis’ long-term CLM expertise.
UPDATE: OK, just heard back from Jerry Ting from Evisort (see below), he told Artificial Lawyer: ‘It’s a commercial alliance. They will be reselling our software to their customers.’
So, this is officially NOT a merger. It’s an alliance. But, even so, for two competing CLM companies to do such a deal is quite a move. It also makes sense. Icertis has been around for some time, has great clients, but perhaps can benefit from Evisort’s AI. Meanwhile, in the now brutally competitive CLM market, filled with peers and now even more competition – see the deal this week with DocuSign and Lexion – then it makes sense to band together.
The big question is: will this eventually lead to a merger in any case at some point? ……Hmmmm….
Samir Bodas, CEO of Icertis, said: ‘I am excited to announce our partnership with Evisort so our joint customers gain material and unique value from the power of Icertis Contract Intelligence and Evisort AI.’
Jerry Ting, CEO of Evisort, added: ‘By integrating our contract-specific AI engine with the Icertis Contract Intelligence platform, we can enable joint customers to rapidly ingest and analyze both legacy and new agreements, accelerating insights that drive business performance. Our collaboration with Icertis will set new standards for how contracts are managed and executed, and deliver exceptional outcomes to our joint customers.”
As part of this new partnership, Evisort’s contract-specific AI engine works in concert with Icertis Discover Copilot to ingest and analyze contract data from new and legacy contracts with the correct semantic meaning to increase the speed, scale, and accuracy of the insights provided by the Icertis platform. This enhanced capability, which is currently used by leading enterprises including Microsoft, allows businesses to leverage their contract data to drive strategic business decisions and operational excellence.
Wow. What an unusual deal for two previously fierce rivals to do. But, the CLM world is going through a lot of changes right now. Interesting times.