Key points:
- LegalOn closes $50M Series E round led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives.
- Funds will accelerate development of agentic AI and global expansion.
- New strategic partnership with OpenAI grants early model access.
Legal tech startup LegalOn has raised $50 million in a Series E funding round led by Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, marking a significant push into the legal AI space by a major financial player. The round also saw participation from World Innovation Lab, Japanese law firm Mori Hamada, Mizuho Bank, and Shoko Chukin.
The capital infusion brings LegalOn’s total funding to over $200 million, following its $101 million Series D in 2022. Founded in Japan in 2017 as LegalForce, the company entered the U.S. market in 2022 and is now preparing for further expansion, with a focus on the U.K. and other global legal markets.
LegalOn’s global CEO, Daniel Lewis, emphasized two main priorities for the new capital: accelerating the company’s development of agentic AI tools and expanding its business development infrastructure. “We're going to be building a variety of agents across the workflow that help lawyers go from intake all the way through to completion on a wide variety of tasks,” Lewis said. “We’ve come to believe that the problems that legal teams are facing around the world … are really universal.”
This latest round follows closely on the heels of product expansions, including Matter Management—a module that moves the company beyond contract review—and an AI-powered playbook feature released in January.
LegalOn also disclosed a new strategic collaboration with OpenAI. The partnership grants the legal tech firm early access to OpenAI’s advanced models via ChatGPT Enterprise and its API. Engineers from both companies are jointly developing new legal agents, a move that may give LegalOn a competitive edge in deploying secure, cutting-edge generative AI tools in enterprise legal settings.
Lewis noted that while LegalOn has previously integrated OpenAI’s models, this deeper collaboration will allow for closer technical alignment and earlier access than what’s available to competitors. “It’s the ability to work more closely with their engineering teams on solving the technical challenges at this leading edge of building agents,” he said.
Goldman Sachs’ participation signals continued, though selective, interest in legal tech from major financial players. The bank also invested in Clio’s $900 million Series F round last year, but such moves remain exceptions rather than the rule in legal technology finance.
