Irish co-founded legal-tech Wordsmith extends Series B to $84m

The start-up was co-founded by Dublin-born chief operating officer Robbie Falkenthal in 2023.

Irish co-founded legal-tech Wordsmith AI is extending its Series B to $84m led by new investment from Toronto-based Intact Private Capital.

The $14m extension to the round first announced in June also includes investment from existing backers Highland Europe and Index Ventures.

Wordsmith also added the corporate venture arm of the Financial Times (FT) Group, FT Ventures, as a shareholder.

The New-York headquartered company is the creator behind an AI platform designed to assist in-house legal teams with routine tasks, and is used by the likes of Canva, BT, Trip.com, FT and Trustpilot.

The additional investment comes as the company recorded a 14-fold growth in revenue year-over-year, following a positive trend seen across this niche sector in AI that is expected to grow at an compound annual growth rate of nearly 10pc.

The funding deepens Wordsmith’s presence in North America, where demand from enterprise legal teams is accelerating, it said.

Wordsmith said it planned to expand its global workforce to 300 by the end of the year, adding to its 130 employees across offices in the US, the UK, and Europe, Middle East and Africa.

A new Irish office to meet local demand is also on the cards for the company this year. It hasn’t confirmed the location for its EU headquarters, but said in June that Ireland was a strong contender.

Wordsmith was co-founded in 2023 by Dublin-born chief operating officer Robbie Falkenthal, who spent six years at KPMG in Dublin before occupying senior roles at Flutter Entertainment, RSM Ireland and TravelPerk.

Alongside Falkenthal as co-founders are CEO Ross McNairn, a former lawyer who helped scale Perk and held senior roles at Skyscanner, and chief technical officer Volodymyr Giginiak, who held senior engineering roles at Facebook and Instagram.

“In-house legal teams at financial services and insurance companies need legal infrastructure that can operate at enterprise scale while maintaining the control and auditability required in highly regulated environments,” said Justin Smith-Lorenzetti, the managing director at Intact Private Capital.

“Wordsmith is built precisely for that challenge, with a deep understanding of how these organisations work and the infrastructure to match.”

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