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From Bell Gully To Big Law AI – Ivo’s US$55m Raise Targets Uber‑Style In‑House Teams

Ivo Founder Jung Lawfuel

Ivo’s latest capital raise puts the Kiwi-founded, San Francisco-based contract Big Law AI company firmly in the top tier of legaltech, with a US$55 million Series B at around a US$355 million valuation and a cap table now packed with marquee US and Australasian funds.
Ivo, co-founded by former New Zealand lawyer (Bell Gully) Min-Kyu Jung (pictured) has closed a US$55 million Series B to accelerate product development and sales, taking total funding well past the US$70 million mark once prior rounds are included.

This follows the $16 million raised a year ago, which we reported here.
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Purpose Legal Acquires Hire Counsel to Build AI-Driven Legal Tech Powerhouse

Purpose Legal’s acquisition of Hire Counsel signals a notable consolidation play in the evolving legal services and legal tech market, marrying scaled attorney staffing with AI-enabled review and litigation support capabilities. For law firms and corporate legal departments, the deal creates a single provider that can stand up large review teams while embedding advanced eDiscovery,

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Inside AlphaLit – The Legal Tech AI Startup Rewiring Legal Intake and Access to Justice

AlphaLit legal tech startup story

AlphaLit’s seed round is more than another legal tech funding story, but is a shot across the bow of the traditional plaintiffs’ bar and a live case study in how voice AI and claims scoring could rewire the economics of “small” litigation.​

For most plaintiffs’ firms, high-volume, lower-dollar matters remain structurally unattractive.

Intake on smaller civil claims is labour-intensive, non-billable, and often delegated to over-stretched staff, which makes it hard to justify the time spent on leads that rarely convert into seven-figure wins.​
AlphaLit points to a brutal funnel – roughly 64 percent of calls from potential plaintiffs never get a substantive response, leaving an estimated 55 million meritorious civil claims unfiled each year, particularly in working-class communities.

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Why This Big Law Firm Is Paying Junior Lawyers to Experiment With AI

US Firm Compensates Junior Lawyers for 20% Time Investment in AI Exploration Rachel Williams, contributing writer As legal technology reshapes practice economics, Ropes & Gray’s billable-hours approach signals strategic pivot in associate training and firm competitiveness In a move that challenges traditional law firm billing models while addressing mounting concerns about AI’s displacement of junior

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Who are the Top Law Tech Innovators in 2026?

law tech innovators list

Law technology developments are set to continue their rapid growth in 2026, driven in part by a small group of executives, partners and technologists inside both law firms and specialist vendors who are now setting the agenda for this year and beyond.

Many of these leaders hold newly created roles such as chief innovation officer or chief AI officer and are charged with turning generative AI, data and automation into measurable results for clients and the business.

​Authority publications and industry reports on 2025’s top AI and legal tech stories show that generative AI, unified cloud platforms and AI governance will dominate 2026 planning for both firms and in house teams.
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Top European Firms Are Letting Gen AI Draft First – And Partners Aren’t Complaining

Lawyers and AI - Why worry?

European law firms have finally found something that can draft faster than a sleep‑deprived mid‑level – and it doesn’t ask for a bonus or threaten to lateral. New research from The Global Legal Post and LexisNexis shows leading firms in Germany, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands quietly handing first‑draft duty to generative AI tools, especially for contracts and complex commercial documents.​

The focus is not sci‑fi robot lawyers, but something far more radical for BigLaw, making use of the knowledge the firm already has.

By plugging Gen AI into internal precedents, know‑how banks and document automation systems, these firms are generating “house style” drafts that reflect prior deals, client preferences and jurisdiction‑specific quirks rather than yet another generic template no one quite trusts.​

Senior partners say the attraction is simple providing better quality at lower cost, delivered with guardrails around confidentiality and auditability that won’t make the GC’s risk committee choke either.
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Fastcase v Alexi – The Legal AI Data Fight Every Firm Should Watch

fastcase lawsuit - LawFuel

The Legal AI Data War From Fastcase That Redraws Licence Risk ​Ben Thomson, LawFuel contributor Clio-owned Fastcase has sued Canadian AI research platform Alexi in Washington, D.C., accusing it of turning a restricted data licence into a springboard for a rival AI legal research tool. The complaint alleges Alexi used Fastcase’s licensed case law not just for

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LawVu Hits $400m Valuation and Goes Full Speed on Legal AI

Sam Kidd LawVu - LawFuel

Tom Borman, LawFuel contributor New Zealand legal tech doesn’t often muscle its way into the global big leagues. LawVu just did with a major acquisition moving the business firmly into the global lawtech firmament. The Tauranga-based legal AI workspace company has acquired Belgian contract automation specialist ClauseBase, rebranding it as LawVu Draft, and in the

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Even an $8B LawTech Unicorn Like Harvey Can’t Eat the Entire Legal Market

winston weinberg Harvey - LawFuel - Law Asia pic

Why CEO Weinberg Says “We Can’t Win It All” If you blinked in 2025, you probably missed a Harvey funding round. The legal AI darling has spent the year defying gravity (and perhaps logic), closing out December with a fresh $160 million Series F led by a16z that pins its valuation at a staggering $8 billion. For those keeping score

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