Need-to-Know: Ex-Goodwin Lawyers Raise $3M Seed to Automate Side Letters & MFN Workflows – ILS’s ProVision Platform Already Powers $150B+ in Global Fundraises
In a clear signal that private funds legal tech is heating up, London-based Intelligent Legal Solutions (ILS) has closed a $3M seed round led by Chicago Ventures, bringing total funding to more than $3 million (with prior backing from The Legal Tech Fund).
The company’s flagship platform, ProVision, is purpose-built for investment funds lawyers and already trusted by more than 10 AmLaw powerhouses including Cleary Gottlieb, Fried Frank, Goodwin, Paul Weiss, Proskauer, Ropes & Gray and Willkie Farr & Gallagher.
In 2025 alone, ProVision processed over 5,000 side letters across 450+ matters, supporting $150 billion+ in capital raised across the US, UK, EU, Hong Kong, Singapore and the Middle East.
The Origin Story – Born in the Trenches of Big Law
Co-founders Fergus Plant (pictured) and Jack McCarthy (both former funds lawyers at Goodwin and Proskauer) teamed up with software engineer Stefano Benigni after years of watching post-close workflows rely on chaotic email chains, sprawling spreadsheets and manual MFN election tracking.
Launched in 2024, ILS set out to fix what they lived: the tedious, error-prone process of negotiating, tracking and enforcing side-letter obligations.
As Plant told the market: “We are thrilled to partner with Chicago Ventures, whose deep expertise assisting companies like ours to empower traditional businesses with technology will allow us to take our already substantial growth to another level.”
What ProVision Actually Does (and Why Funds Lawyers Are Obsessed)
ProVision turns unstructured side letters into a single, searchable system of record. Negotiated terms become structured, auditable obligations; MFN processes run end-to-end with automated, anonymised election forms that track investor choices in real time. Optional, heavily guarded AI handles extraction, tagging and comparison — but lawyers stay firmly in control (no hallucinations, SOC 2 Type 2, GDPR-compliant, single-tenant AWS deployment).
The result? No more missed obligations, instant visibility for investor queries, and a consistent process across every fund matter.
Legal Tech Context: Part of a Bigger Wave
ILS joins a growing cohort of Big Law alumni building vertical tools for the funds market , like Kirkland & Ellis associate Amr Jomaa’s Navys platform and others laser-focused on the post-close pain points that generic CLM tools simply can’t touch. We reported recently about AlphaLit and UK ‘tech only’ law firm LawFairy.
Chicago Ventures partner Eric Duboe sees the bigger picture: “ILS is building the workflow system for private funds lawyers, starting with MFN and side-letter automation and expanding into a unified platform for fund formation teams… We’re proud to lead this round and partner with the team as they scale globally.”
2026 Roadmap & What’s Next
The fresh capital will accelerate development of comment-memo automation, co-investment tracking, enhanced LP reporting, and tighter integrations with fund admin platforms.
ILS is also eyeing new jurisdictions (Luxembourg and Cayman Islands are on the radar) while staying true to its lawyer-first philosophy. Long-term vision: become the de-facto data layer for private funds legal teams worldwide.
With 1,000+ users already live and a 100% pilot-to-contract conversion rate, ILS is proving that domain-expert legal tech, built by lawyers, for lawyers, is capable of winning at the highest levels in the legal market.
