The Toronto legaltech startup Rally has raised $10.9 million as it joins the wave of tech startups incorporating generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology into their products.
Rally initially launched an AI-powered tool in 2022 named Spellbook, which uses OpenAI’s GPT-4 technology to help legal practitioners draft and review contracts. The technology will help make that process up to four times faster, the company claims.
Spellbook claims over 600 legal teams are actively using its platform.
As part of its new focus on developing legal tools powered by AI, Rally is rebranding and adopting Spellbook’s name.
According to the company, this round of funding will support its hiring, expansion, as well as research and development. Spellbook did not disclose further details regarding these plans.
The round was led by Moxxie Ventures, with participation from Thomson Reuters Ventures, Inovia Capital, The LegalTech Fund, Bling Capital, N49P, Concrete Ventures, Good News Ventures, as well as Venture Newfoundland & Labrador, among others.
Matt Mayers, co-founder and chief experience officer at the company, compares Spellbook to a “tailwind for the lawyer,” keeping them in the driver’s seat with an AI assistant to help them complete tasks more quickly.
Spellbook offers other tech-enabled solutions for legal teams such as capabilities for client intake, collaboration, and company management, among others.
Spellbook claims over 600 legal teams are actively using its platform, with an additional 53,000 people signed up for the waitlist.
Spellbook is just one of many Canadian startups that are building generative AI applications based on OpenAI’s GPT technologies.
RELATED: Academics, CEOs push for AI regulation, as Canadian companies race to adopt the technology
Toronto-based Manorlead, for example, is using the OpenAI integration to offer smarter home-search capabilities. It allows people to type their queries for finding properties as they would talk to a friend. A sample prompt read something like: “I want a 4BR detached house in Vaughan around $1.5 million to $2.5 million,” which would generate results that align with the provided context.
Ada, which is also based in Toronto, launched a suite of generative AI tools to automate certain processes in customer inquiries. Vancouver’s social media giant Hootsuite launched an AI-powered content generator, which can turn web content into social posts or rewrite them.
Featured image courtesy Unsplash.