Legislate raises $3.6M to give startups & SMEs the technology to query and compare every contract

Using its patented knowledge graph technology, Legislate provides companies with ontologies of legal terms, allowing anyone in the business to semantically search for information across an entire database of contracts. The company, which until now has focused on creating a solution for startups and scaleups, is using the funds to double down on UK sales and prepare for international expansion in 2023.

“For scaling companies, keeping track of terms across hundreds or thousands of contracts is a challenge that creeps up on you. Searching for basic information like contract start and end dates, or nuances in confidentiality terms across entire databases of contracts is painfully manual, or impossible. Before working with us, we know that some of our customers would spend weeks doing this” said Charles Brecque, Legislate’s founder.

“By allowing companies to create their own ontologies of terms and making them semantically searchable, we enable anyone in that business to search for information in contracts, even if they don’t have a legal background. That’s incredibly powerful for scaling companies where business teams need to review terms across hundreds of contracts quickly to understand exposure to risks”, he continued.

With Legislate’s technology, contracts are first made machine-readable, this subsequently allows all business users to easily compare, create, query, and sign every contract without the need for outside legal involvement.

In 2022 the company announced it had been granted its second US patent for semantic document generation, further enhancing its patented knowledge graph technology – ultimately benefiting Legislate’s customers. Customers primarily use Legislate for employment, consultancy, internal contracts, and terms of business agreements.

“We are delighted to have secured additional funding capable of helping us continue to drive innovation in this sector. The grant of our second patent last year has put our technology in an extremely strong position coming into 2023 – we’re making it easier for businesses of all sizes to create and manage complex contracts quickly and in a way that allows them to extract and aggregate data afterwards. We’re looking forward to what we can achieve this year as we focus on our sales capability”, commented Charles Brecque, Founder and CEO of Legislate.

“Legislate has developed a unique solution to simplify contracting for SMEs and mid-market businesses in a way that scales. We’re confident that they are well-positioned to take a significant portion of the market. Their focus on making contracts machine-readable is particularly impressive and we believe it has the potential to be a game-changer in the industry,” commented Claire Pardo from Parkwalk Advisors.

“We are proud to back Charles and the team in their mission to use tech to revolutionise contract creation and management. Investing in Legislate is investing in the future of machine-readable contracts. Their patented Knowledge Graph system sets them apart from other technologies and makes it simple for people without legal training to access contracts created by lawyers and manage them effectively,” commented Stephen Hampson, Investment Director at Oxford Capital.