Thomson Reuters has entered right into a definitive settlement to accumulate Casetext, a Y Combinator-backed authorized tech startup.
The deal, valued at $650 million in money, is anticipated to shut within the second half of 2023, topic to regulatory approvals and customary closing circumstances.
“The acquisition of Casetext is one other step in our ‘construct, associate and purchase’ technique to deliver generative AI options to our clients,” Thomson Reuters CEO Steve Hasker stated in a canned assertion. “We imagine that Casetext will speed up and broaden our market potential for these choices — revolutionizing the way in which professionals work, and the work they do.”
Based in 2013, Casetext, which TechCrunch has lined quite a few instances all through its historical past, initially targeted on creating each a neighborhood for attorneys to share information and a service to present customers free entry to authorized texts annotated by attorneys. However the firm later pivoted, embracing AI and ML to construct automated workflows and instruments for authorized groups.
Casetext’s flagship product is CoCounsel, which faucets AI to evaluation paperwork, assist with authorized analysis memos, put together depositions and analyze contracts. Casetext was one of many few granted early entry to OpenAI’s GPT-4 language mannequin, which serves because the infrastructural backend for CoCounsel.
Casetext’s AI-powered authorized tech.
In response to a press launch, Casetext — which has 104 staff — has a buyer base exceeding 10,000 legal guidelines corporations and company authorized departments. Main as much as the acquisition, the corporate raised over $64 million from Union Sq. Ventures and others.
“For the final ten years, we’ve harnessed the facility of AI to construct merchandise that elevate the apply of legislation and allow attorneys to serve extra folks’s authorized wants, with the final word aim of accelerating entry to justice,” Casetext CEO Jake Heller stated in a press release. “Becoming a member of Thomson Reuters is an unbelievable alternative to advance our mission and the sphere of generative AI options exponentially, not just for attorneys however throughout professions, guaranteeing this revolutionary expertise can profit as many individuals as doable.”
For Thomson Reuters, the acquisition is part of a long-term technique to embed generative AI into its main enterprise verticals — authorized, tax, accounting and information. The corporate not too long ago introduced that it plans to spend some $100 million a 12 months on AI and incorporate generative AI into its merchandise within the second half of this 12 months, and to put aside $10 billion for mergers and acquisitions — many AI-focused — from now till 2025.
The place it issues Reuters’ authorized enterprise, generative AI looks like a clever place to take a position if surveys are to be believed. A Reuters ballot — which clearly needs to be taken with a grain of salt, given the supply — printed in 2023 discovered that 82% of authorized professionals imagine generative AI will be readily utilized to authorized work. A barely smaller majority, 51%, stated that generative AI ought to be utilized to authorized work.
Some imagine that generative AI applied sciences may add trillions in worth to the worldwide economic system. Others are extra skeptical, pointing to overhype and the potential for job loss. In any case, VCs and companies alike are pouring an immense amount of money into the sector, with the market for generative AI forecast to generate $36 billion in income by 2028.
