Manchester-based Summize has secured £5m in Series A investment.
Summize, which uses artificial intelligence to make legal contracts easier to understand, will use funding from YFM Equity Partners and Maven Capital to expand its presence in the US.
Founded in 2018, Summize has more than 100 companies worldwide on its platform, including Fujifilm, Everton FC, NCC Group, Moonpig and The Modern Milkman.
The funding, raised through UK small businesses YFM VCT and Maven VCT, will allow Summize to capitalize on the growth opportunity in the global CLM software market.
The business will expand into key overseas territories, in addition to product innovation, sales and marketing.
Tom Dunlop, co-founder and CEO of Summize said: “Summize aims to get more out of business contracts by accelerating and automating the end-to-end process, from contract creation to analytics and summaries.
“Unlike many of our competitors, our system integrates directly with existing collaboration tools, which is vital for adoption across the business.
Run the software with work from anywhere Policy doubles the number of staff
“The Series A funding will allow us to enhance our sales and marketing capabilities and accelerate our expansion through our presence in the US, which is a huge potential market for us.
“We will also continue to scale what we have already built with further product development and innovation – we have a well-defined target market and products with the functionality to meet very real business needs.”
Mike Clarke, investment partner at YFM, said: “Summize are deliberately different and we love their disruptive approach. They have developed a truly effective solution to assist legal departments and processes in their digital journey, appealing to users as it acts as an extension of existing ways of working.
“Summize also benefits from having a very experienced senior management team at this stage of the business and a clear vision of where they are going. We are excited to support them as they continue their growth journey.”
James Darlington, Investment Director at Maven, said: “Maven is delighted to support Summize. This is an attractive opportunity for VKT Maven to invest in a fast-growing business that has made significant commercial progress in terms of sales growth and new customers.
“We have been impressed by the ambition, skills and knowledge of the management team and we are confident they will continue to drive the business forward and realize its growth ambitions.”
YFM’s investment team consisted of Laura Sisson, Mike Clark and Ian Waterfield.
