Tom Borman, LawFuel contributor
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.
- The round was led by existing backer Blackbird, with new money from Costanoa Ventures, Uncork Capital, Fika Ventures, GD1 and Icehouse Ventures, and follows a US$16 million Series A in February last year and earlier seed funding.
- The raise values Ivo at around US$355 million, off the back of a reported sixfold jump in annual recurring revenue since its last round and more than doubling of its customer base, including a sharp uplift in Fortune 500 adoption.
What Ivo actually does
- Ivo pitches itself as an AI “contract intelligence” platform for in‑house teams, promising to cut contract review time by up to 75 percent while standardising playbooks and surfacing risk and negotiation positions across a company’s entire deal stack.
- Rather than a generic chatbot, the platform breaks reviews into more than 400 separate AI tasks and is heavily tuned to a customer’s playbook, risk profile and fallback positions, positioning contracts as a source of business intelligence rather than a compliance chore.
- Enterprise clients already include Uber, Shopify, IBM, Reddit, Canva and other large tech and Fortune 500 names, with the company also selling the ability to mine legacy agreements for how positions and risk appetite have shifted over time.
Founders, ownership and investors
- Ivo was founded by New Zealanders Min‑Kyu Jung (CEO, ex‑Bell Gully corporate lawyer) and Jacob Duligall (CTO), (pictured above) who have shifted the company’s centre of gravity from New Zealand to San Francisco while keeping strong NZ investor representation.
- While detailed cap‑table percentages are not public, the company remains founder‑led, with major institutional holders including Blackbird and a syndicate of US venture funds alongside New Zealand investors GD1 and Icehouse Ventures that backed the company from earlier stages.
- Jung has been profiled as one of the region’s standout young founders, featuring on Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia, and continues to be the public face of Ivo’s thesis that contracts should become a strategic asset for the business, not just a cost centre for Legal.
