Global online legal research provider vLex last week launched a suite of generative AI-backed document analysis tools for litigation and transactional practitioners as in other news, AI startups Patlytics and Lawhive announced seed raises of £3.6 ($4.5m) and £9.6m ($11.9m) respectively.
vLex’s Vincent AI Document Analyze augments lawyers’ responses to contracts, motions, pleadings, and other legal documents, using AI tools built on top of vLex’s global library of legal information. vLex says that Vincent AI can develop legal arguments, summarise documents, and compare law across jurisdictions.
vLex, which was founded was founded in Spain in 2020, in April last year merged with US online legal publisher Fastcase and now trades globally under the vLex brand. In October last year, the combined company launched a suite of large language tools. Explaining to Legal IT Insider how this latest release extends that offering, Fastcase’s founder and now vLex chief strategy officer, Ed Walters, said over email: “This is a major expansion: the big new skill is Analyze a Document. When you upload just about any document, we use a bunch of proprietary AI to find out what it is, tag all the information in it, and proactively suggest workflows depending on what kind of document and what the legal arguments are in it.
“So, for example, if you upload a contract draft, Vincent might suggest drafting a letter to opposing counsel to make extreme terms more neutral. If you upload a final contract, Vincent might suggest making a checklist of post-closing obligations. If you upload a complaint, the kinds of suggestions Vincent offers are extracting the claims, setting out the relevant legal standards, drafting defenses to each claim, assembling a timeline of events, or drafting a questionnaire for the defendant. These aren’t generic – they will be specific to the facts in the case and the causes of action.” vLex is also now available in 10 countries and can search multiple jurisdictions at once, or compare the laws of multiple countries. The Compare Jurisdictions tool can now run a search across all 50 U.S. states at once, or you can compare, for example, California privacy law against the E.U. and UK.
In addition, vLex now offers vLex Labs to select Vincent customers, enabling them to create proprietary AI-powered workflows with the help of a dedicated team. Leading the team will be Dan Hoadley, who recently joined vLex as head of R&D from Mishcon de Reya. Hoadley will lead vLex’s co-development work with global law firms using Vincent AI. This might be using vLex data APIs for internal law firm AI tooling, or creating vector indices of law firm expertise, or ‘skunkworks’ projects with vLex, corporate legal departments, and law firms in the same project.
vLex has grown rapidly since its 2019 merger with London legal tech company Justis. Last year it acquired Docket Alarm, and through its merger with Fastcase it also now includes bankruptcy software provider NextChapter. The merged offering now leverages the laws of over 100 countries.
In other news last week, Patlytics, the AI-powered patent workflow platform, raised £3.6m in seed funding led by Gradient, Google’s AI-focused venture fund.
Unlike traditional methods that rely heavily on manual input from practitioners, Patlytics automates key aspects of the patent process, including initial drafting and office action responses, infringement evaluation, advanced search, and competitor intelligence.
Announcing the seed round, Paul Lee, co-founder and CEO of Patlytics, said: “When I was a venture capitalist, I witnessed many opportunities in the IP space when interacting with my portfolio companies. The AI revolution in patent intelligence is not just about efficiency; it’s about transforming how patent professionals strategize and engage with the entire patent lifecycle.”
Darian Shirazi, general partner at Gradient, added: “Protecting intellectual property remains a major priority and business requirement for information technology, physical product, and biotechnology companies. As companies incorporate AI into their new products, companies from the automobile to the pharmaceutical industry are keen to protect new inventions and watch for infringement from competitors.”
Patlytics is working with partners across the spectrum, from in-house counsels for the Fortune 500 to leading law firms, including two of the top five IP focused practices, and more. Customers can request a demo on patlytics.ai.
Also participating in the round were 8VC, Joe Montana’s Liquid 2 Ventures, Tribe Capital, Vermilion Ventures, Gaingels, Alumni Ventures, Position Ventures and several undisclosed angel investors including select partners from premier law firms and Datadog President Amit Agarwal.
Last but not least, last week saw UK online legal network Lawhive announce a seed round of £9.6m to expand the reach of its services.
Lawhive bills itself as a technology platform with a regulated law firm, so that you can work with lawyers for a fraction of the cost of a high street law firm.
However, as reported last week by TechCrunch, lawyers can also use its software to onboard and manage their own clients, or can sign up for Lawhive’s marketplace to be matched with individual customers and small businesses.
The startup says it applies a variety of foundational AI models as well as its own in-house model to summarize documents and speed up repetitive tasks such as KYC/AML, client onboarding and document collection for both lawyers and their clients.
Pierre Proner, CEO and co-founder of Lawhive, said: “Access to the law should be a basic right, available to everyone. Unfortunately this isn’t the case. Our vision is to combine AI and best-in-class lawyers to reduce the time and cost of providing high-quality legal support, increasing access for millions of people who need it.”