Wordsmith, Legal Automation Software Startup, Raises $70M, Reaching $100M Total Funding

Wordsmith raised $70 million in new funding, bringing its total capital to $100 million raised over 24 months. Index Ventures and Highland Europe backed the round. The company develops software that pulls requests from email, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Salesforce, drafts an initial version of contracts or answers to legal questions, and routes each matter to the appropriate person.

Com, and BT. Wordsmith was founded in Edinburgh, Scotland. Ross McNairn, a trained lawyer who left legal practice to build software startups, serves as founder and chief executive.

He previously sold Dorsai Travel to Skyscanner in 2014 and held senior roles at Skyscanner and TravelPerk. McNairn received an early look at OpenAI's technology through an invitation from General Catalyst while at TravelPerk. He built internal tools using OpenAI's large language model there before leaving to start Wordsmith.

Index Ventures issued him a term sheet before he had fully departed TravelPerk and has participated in every subsequent round. The company focuses exclusively on corporate legal departments rather than law firms. McNairn said Wordsmith had walked away from potential seven-figure contracts with law firms because serving both sides created a conflict.

"I can't really in good conscience serve the people that I'm diminishing the business of," he said. McNairn contrasted Wordsmith's approach with general-purpose models. "Claude's good for individuals doing individual jobs," he said.

Other legal-technology companies have reported rapid growth. GC AI raised $60 million last year after growing annualized revenue from $1 million to $10 million in under a year. Harvey has stated that in-house customers now account for 40 percent of its business.