AI-Driven Legal Search Startup DeepJudge Raises $10.7M in Seed Round Led by Coatue; Announces Knowledge Assistant

DeepJudge Founders and Ex-Google AI PhDs: Kevin Roth, Paulina Grnarova and Yannic Kilcher

Ex-Google AI PhDs and LegalTech Experts Unite to Transform Search for the Legal Industry

DeepJudge is one of the first products on a mission to empower legal teams to harness their internal data to make strategic decisions”

— Caryn Marooney, General Partner at Coatue

ZURICH, SWITZERLAND, June 18, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Zurich, Switzerland, June 18, 2024 – DeepJudge, a Swiss-based startup that leverages artificial intelligence to help law firms and legal departments search their own knowledge base, has raised $10.7 million in an oversubscribed seed funding round. The round was led by Coatue, with participation from notable angel investors such as Gokul Rajaram and Michele Catasta and existing investors Thomas Dübendorfer, Daniel Sauter, and Felix Ehrat.

Founded by AI researchers and former Google search engineers Paulina Grnarova, Yannic Kilcher, and Kevin Roth, DeepJudge solves one of the most fundamental challenges within the legal sector: the ability to efficiently find and use the troves of internal documents and data. DeepJudge Knowledge Search allows firms to instantly locate relevant content from across the enterprise, including document management systems, the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, and other tools.

Additionally, the company announced the availability of DeepJudge Knowledge Assistant, the only generative AI interface for law firms and legal departments that can instantly access the firm’s entire document knowledge base. DeepJudge Knowledge Assistant uses Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) technology to provide the most relevant, up-to-date information, ensuring high-quality answers are grounded in each organization’s comprehensive institutional knowledge.

“Over time, law firms generate millions of documents, forming a vast reservoir of intellectual output. Yet, when tackling new tasks, lawyers often have to start from scratch, struggle to locate colleagues with relevant expertise, or spend hours crafting complex Boolean queries. This is where DeepJudge steps in. Our mission is to connect legal professionals with their entire collective knowledge in an intuitive manner, turning it into a powerful competitive advantage,” said Paulina Grnarova, CEO of DeepJudge, who has been listed as Forbes 30 under 30 and as Digital Shaper of Switzerland for three years in a row. “AI-powered search not only boosts productivity, but also unlocks entirely new possibilities for firms and legal departments, such as spotting risks and opportunities from across their client base. It can make legal teams instantly smarter about advising clients on industry trends.”

Following its local success in the European market, DeepJudge has begun expanding internationally, assembling a team of legaltech experts. In February, the company announced that Tony Ensinger, previously Head of Sales at Casetext (acquired by Thomson Reuters), joined as their SVP of Sales and Product Strategy. Additionally, Steve Obenski, former senior leader at Kira Systems (acquired by Litera), has joined DeepJudge as an interim Chief Strategy Officer to help spearhead the US expansion. The company’s advisors include Jan Puzicha, one of the founders of Recommind (acquired by OpenText).

“DeepJudge is one of the first products on a mission to empower legal teams to harness their internal data to make strategic decisions,” shared Caryn Marooney, General Partner at Coatue who led the investment. “From a technology standpoint, we are impressed by DeepJudge’s approach to solving data retrieval, which we believe is crucial to achieve high-quality generative results. We are excited to support DeepJudge as they seek to gain traction in the legal industry and grow their client base.”

Leaders in legal innovation agree. “For some time we’ve been looking for an advanced search engine that can effectively navigate through millions of internal documents in various formats, so that our collective know-how and expertise are at our lawyers’ fingertips. Finding relevant knowledge at the right time is critical for providing tailored legal advice in high-stakes strategic matters and DeepJudge, customised to our specialised needs, now enables us to do precisely that. Thanks to its intuitive interface and capacity to handle precise and nuanced queries, our lawyers can uncover key insights with ease,” said Fedor Poskriakov, Deputy Managing Partner at Lenz & Staehelin, one of the largest law firms in Switzerland and Chambers Band 1 in multiple practice areas. “The output from DeepJudge's search function can then seamlessly connect with a generative AI-based workflow to help our people to efficiently deliver high-quality, consistent value for our clients. DeepJudge has both impressive technical credentials and a vision for how fast, focused information retrieval can take law firms to the next level.”

With this investment, DeepJudge is excited to continue its expansion and scale the team to support increasing customer demands, driving forward its mission to transform enterprise legal search and unlock new business models and client service possibilities.

About DeepJudge
Founded by ex-Googlers with PhDs in AI from ETH Zurich, DeepJudge harnesses multilingual and proprietary AI technology to provide an intent-based, scalable, and secure search engine tailored specifically for legal documents. Learn more at www.deepjudge.ai or reach out at media@deepjudge.ai.

Paulina Grnarova
DeepJudge AG
media@deepjudge.ai
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