Japan-based contract review technology developer LegalForce completed a ¥2.7bn ($25.5m) series C round today featuring financial services firms Mitsubishi UFJ, Mizuho Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation.
The banks have invested through respective venture capital vehicles Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, Mizuho Capital and SMBC Venture Capital, and were joined by startup incubator operator Dream Incubator’s Dimension fund and VC firm Jafco.
Japan Finance Corporation and Mitsubishi UFJ Bank provided an additional $2.8m in debt financing, and the round took the company’s overall funding to roughly $42.5m since it was founded in 2017.
Spun out of Kyoto University, LegalForce is working on an artificial intelligence-equipped and cloud-based legal document analysis tool dubbed Marshall. The software detects risks in written contracts and helps legal professionals amend the wording.
Kyoto University’s Innovation Capital (Kyoto i-Cap) fund and VC firm World Innovation Lab had joined Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, SMBC Venture Capital, Mizuho Capital, Dream Incubator and Jafco to back a $9m series B round in February 2020.
Mitsubishi UFJ Capital and Mizuho Capital had also participated in a $368,000 series A tranche in January 2019, two months after the initial $4.4m close featuring Kyoto i-Cap, Dream Incubator and Jafco.
SMBC Venture Capital, Kyoto i-Cap and multiple angel investors including Shinsuke Mori, a professor at Kyoto University, provided $754,000 in seed funding in April 2018.
– The original version of this article appeared on our sister site, Global University Venturing.
