LegalOn Buys Fides, Expands Beyond Contract AI

LegalOn has expanded beyond its core contract review capabilities with the acquisition of Fides – in its first ever M&A deal – and a move that brings aboard entity management and governance capabilities.

The move follows a $50m Series E fundraise, and as Global CEO of LegalOn, Daniel Lewis, told Artificial Lawyer, more M&A deals are likely to happen.

In an AL interview, California-based Lewis told this site: ‘As our first acquisition: we saw in Fides a deeply innovative company with unique capabilities that broaden how we can serve corporate legal teams, providing in-house with one AI platform to manage matters, contracts, and now entities and boards. 

‘Fides is unlikely to be our last acquisition, but we’re going to be very selective. 

‘Our vision is to serve the needs of corporate legal teams. Contracts are a big piece of that, but not the only piece – which is why we’ve acquired Fides, expanded to matter management, and are expanding further. LegalOn can be the AI that everyone on the team uses every day, across whatever they’re working on.’

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As to Fides, it launched in 2021 and has clients such as Allianz Global Investors and is based in Germany. Its CEO, Lisa Gradow, commented: ‘By joining LegalOn, our combined product serves as the strongest system of record for in-house legal teams worldwide.’

The Fides team, with headquarters in Munich, will join LegalOn under the continued leadership of co-founders Gradow, Vincent Bobinski (CTO) and Philippa Peters (COO/CLO). That gives LegalOn hubs in the US, Japan, and now the heart of Europe.

Fides will remain available as a standalone product while becoming an integrated part of the LegalOn platform. Its governance capabilities will enable corporate legal teams to manage matters, contracts, governance and compliance seamlessly within a single solution, they added.

Is this a big deal? Well, it’s an interesting strategic move for a company that is in a fiercely competitive market segment, namely using AI to help with contract review. Traditional CLM companies have come back with a vengeance in terms of leveraging genAI, and a mass of smaller contract AI players are each seeking market share; meanwhile Harvey and Legora are also seeking to expand their inhouse customer roster. All in all, it’s a battle for revenue expansion.

By adding something new and extra, and which corporates definitely need, i.e. entity management, LegalOn expands what it can offer, gains an ‘in’ to new clients, and – it is hoped – will accelerate revenue growth outside of Japan, where it already has a very large market share of the contract review market.

More about LegalOn here.

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