Luminance has raised $40m Series B funding led by Santa Monica-based growth-stage venture firm, March Capital, with participation from National Grid Partners and other existing investors, including magic circle law firm Slaughter and May.
Luminance automates the generation, negotiation and analysis of contracts and other legal documents, working with customers such as global manufacturers Koch Industries, Hitachi and Yokogawa; insurers Liberty Mutual; and pharmaceutical giants LG Chem. We wrote a story about the seven-figure-deal work they are doing with UK top 50 law firm Clyde & Co here.
We’re told that Luminance saw 5x ARR growth in the last two years, and that this latest funding round will be used to accelerate Luminance’s global growth and expand its footprint in the U.S.
In its last accounts filed at Companies House at the end of 2023 for the year ended 31 December 2022, Luminance’s revenue grew from £3.8m to £5.9m but it recorded an operating loss and had net liabilities of £13m. In April 2023 is completed a new equity financing round in which long-term liabilities at year end were converted to equity, resulting in a positive net asset balance.
“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,” said Eleanor Lightbody, CEO of Luminance. “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.”
Ian Cooper, managing director at National Grid Partners, added: “The power and utilities sector, as a regulated industry, deals with a vast amount of legal and contractual documentation. Luminance’s innovative legal LLM and advanced AI assistant shows great promise in being able to relieve contract processing bottlenecks and enhance contract performance monitoring. We’re optimistic that Luminance’s platform will be a valuable tool for power and utilities customers.”
Luminance raised its $10m Series A in November 2017 led by Talis Capital, Invoke Capital and Slaughter and May. Legal IT Insider first revealed in 2017 that Slaughter and May had, at that time, a 5% stake in the company, and was an early adopter of the technology.
The Series A valued Luminance at $50m and the Series B $100m.
This story is being updated.
They are being very quiet on the fact they’ve raised a B round before a few years ago!
This was a really interesting observation and you’re quite right that some sites did report they have raised a Series B in 2019. We checked it out and it seems to have been reported in error – their press release (we’ve dug out the one that was sent out at the time) didn’t say Series B. Their CEO says it wasn’t a Series B. It’s unclear how the confusion arose though.