Definely secures $7m in Series A funding to change how the world’s top lawyers access and understand contracts

May, 2024 –  Definely a UK LegalTech company created to make legal documents easier to read, edit and understand, has successfully raised Series A funding. The $7m Series A investment round was led by Octopus Ventures, with participation from Cornerstone VC and Zrosk Investment Ltd and some notable angels including Ajay Patel and Babatunde Soyoye.

• Definely is headquartered in London with over 60 employees globally
• The company serves over 40,000 active users, including a roster of marquee Magic Circle and AM 100 law firms
• $7m investment advances the companies GenAI proposition including ‘Vault’ released last year

Available via subscription, Definely’s suite of productivity solutions assists lawyers at every pre-execution stage of the contract lifecycle, helping its customers draft, proof and understand legal documents quickly. Headquartered in London, and with over 60 employees located globally, the company is now focused on adding to its existing base of 40,000 active users from the largest companies and law firms in the UK, US, Canada and Australia. As the company advances how it incorporates AI, it will also actively look to expand its highly-experienced technical team.

Feargus MacDaeid, Co-Founder & CSO of Definely says

Before we built Definely, lawyers that needed to access information and understand contracts would use Ctrl+F keys, multiple windows, scroll through hundreds of pages, or simply print out documents so that they could reference all the information in one place. As someone who is visually impaired, you can imagine the challenge this represented for me.

It sounds like an obvious problem, but you wouldn’t believe how many hours law firms can spend just looking for the right information

Conceived after a chance meeting of two former Magic Circle lawyers, Definely’s co-founders have had a less-than conventional path to creating one of the UK’s fastest-growing LegalTech startups. Registered as legally blind, Feargus MacDaeid struck up an unlikely friendship with Nigerian migrant Nnamdi Emelifeonwu – when the pair worked together at law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer – that would see the pair develop technology that has now been proven to give lawyers significant daily time savings when working on contracts.

The company, which in 2023 was named in the top 25 of the prestigious Deloitte UK Technology Fast50, a list of the UK’s fastest-growing tech companies – launched its first product in September 2020 and now serves a global elite of law firms and Fortune 500 companies including Allen & Overy (now A&O Shearman), Slaughter & May, Dentons, Deloitte, P&O Cruises and many more.

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu, Co-Founder & CEO of Definely commented

Definely is a testament to the power of diverse perspectives and accessibility first in innovation. So we built the simplest delivery possible for our tech,

incorporating it via a Microsoft Word Plugin so that it integrates with every lawyer’s existing workflow and tooling. It was this in part, that allowed us to become such an entrenched provider of legal technology

Edwin Appiah, Partner at Cornerstone VC, said

AI disruption across the legal sector is set to continue, with productivity and cost efficiency remaining top priorities for legal firms across the globe. Definely is well placed to serve enterprise accounts across the spectrum, including a roster of marquee Magic Circle and AM 100 law firms. We couldn’t be more pleased with their progress having made an initial seed commitment last year. Congratulations to the Definely team, they deserve all of the success.

For more information visit Definely