ROSS Intelligence Grabs $13 Million in Funding
Artificial intelligence is infiltrating every corner of the market, and the latest announcement from ROSS Intelligence shows how far-reaching the technology can be.
The Toronto-based legal AI company has secured an $8.7 million Series A funding round. The round was led by iNovia Capital with participation from Comcast Ventures Catalyst Fund, Y Combinator Continuity Fund, Real Ventures and more. This new round of funding builds on ROSS’ $4.3 million seed round, totalling $13 million in capital for the young company.
ROSS also announced a new hiring to their team: WeWork’s former head of sales, Scott Sperling, is joining ROSS as the new VP of sales. Sperling will spearhead the U.S. expansion. Daniel Rodriquez, the former dean of Northwestern’s Prtizker School of Law will also join ROSS in an advisory capacity, bringing his knowledge to aid the company in law school expansion as well as access to justice initiatives.
The barely two-year-old ROSS was founded by Andrew Arruda, Jimoh Ovbiagele and Pargles Dall’Oglio at the University of Toronto, a hotbed for AI not only in Canada but the entire world. Lawyers have grown to use ROSS in almost every state in the U.S., as they now rely on the technology to streamline research and discovery processes. ROSS can help with initial searches all the way to monitoring law around the clock, ensuring that users never miss out on developments that could possibly have a major role in a legal case.
“Our goal is to continue to bring the power of artificial intelligence to the legal industry allowing lawyers to enhance and scale their abilities and do more than ever before humanly possible,” says Arruda, CEO of ROSS Intelligence. “This latest financing gives us the ability to continue our aggressive expansion, add great talent to our growing world-class team, innovate rapidly, and deliver on our vision into the future.”
Until recently, AI and the legal industry did not intersect. Major players in the sector have been looking for ways to streamline archaic practices with modern technology and ROSS provides them with that option. Since launching in 2015, ROSS has grown its staff and opened locations in New York and San Francisco, as well as recently opening an AI R&D lab in Toronto.
“As demonstrated by their technological success and commercial leadership in the legal space, ROSS Intelligence is clearly the market leader in the development of artificial intelligence applications for the law,” said Karam Nijjar, partner at iNovia Capital. “We’re thrilled to be leading this Series A financing round to provide the ROSS Intelligence team with the firepower to rapidly scale their technical and sales expertise while expanding into the Fortune 500 legal market and beyond.”
Some of ROSS’ customers include the largest law firms in the U.S. such as Dentons, Shearman & Sterling and Latham & Watkins.