A tech firm, which was only set up in October last year, has secured $5m in seed funding.
Edinburgh-based Wordsmith is an artificial intelligence platform, created to take the pressure off in-house legal teams. It works by allowing employees solicit help with legal tasks using a team of AI legal assistants and therefore speeding up processes.
It already counts Trustpilot and DLA Piper amongst its clients.
It was co-founded by CEO and qualified lawyer, Ross McNairn, the former Chief Product and Technology Officer at TravelPerk, alongside COO Robbie Falkenthal (COO), who was VP of Business Operations at the same company – and also a qualified lawyer. The Chief Technology Officer is Volodymyr Giginiak – his background is senior software engineering roles at tech giants, Meta and Microsoft.
The seed round was led by Index Ventures with participation from General Catalyst, Felix, Yellow and S16vc.
One of the backers is Skyscanner founder and former CEO, Gareth Williams – and that probably should’t be a major surprise, given that Skyscanner acquired Dorsai travel in September 2014. McNairn had co-founded Dorsai Travel in January 2014 and after the acquisition became Skyscanner’s Head of Product.
“It’s a special moment to have investors and partners of such sensational pedigree throw their weight behind Wordsmith AI and our mission,” said McNairn.
“Excited to see what we can build together.”
Wordsmith said that what made it different was that before now the focus was on platforms for professional services, but there was an “an acute pain for in-house legal teams.”
“Lawyers are too often viewed as a ‘necessary friction’. A risk mitigation that the business needs to accept if they want to operate like an adult. While they bring incredible value, there is little tolerance for the perception that they are slowing down the company,” it stated.
“Wordsmith’s mission is to unlock a real appreciation for the quality and value that lawyers add, without the trade-off that comes with moving slowly or getting in the way. By building backwards from employees and making their experience delightful, meeting them in their workflows so they love using legal.”
It added:
“Our goal is simple. To build the ultimate legal command centre for in-house lawyers, that lets them accelerate everyone around them.
“Now we have the world class investors to help support us in this challenge.”
