Scottish AI-powered legal tech startup Wordsmith secures €4.6M from Index Ventures, General Catalyst, others

Edinburgh, Scotland-based Wordsmith, a startup specialising in AI-powered legal operations for enterprises, announced that it has secured $5M (approximately €4.6M) in a seed funding round led by Index Ventures with participation from General Catalyst, Felix, Yellow, and S16vc.

The fresh capital will enable the Scottish company to build an in-house legal experience designed for employees.

“AI is not about replacing professionals. It’s about making them better at their jobs,” explains Wordsmith CEO Ross McNairn. 

“Just as the word processor didn’t replace writers, but instead made them more productive, Wordsmith is ushering in a new era of AI-assisted professional services,” adds McNairn. 

What does Wordsmith solve?

Wordsmith aims to solve a critical challenge for in-house legal teams: the overwhelming volume of routine tasks that leaves lawyers struggling to keep up with business demands. 

From verifying policy details to analysing contracts and managing complex financing, there is a high demand for human judgment and significant consequences for oversights. 

However, many of the outputs are repetitive and can be templated.

And here’s where the Scottish company steps in. 

Wordsmith: Made for in-house legal operations

In 2023, Ross McNairn, Volodymyr Giginiak, and Robbie Falkenthal founded Wordsmith to create a legal AI workplace platform tailored to businesses.

Through its solution, the company aims to tackle a critical challenge faced by in-house legal teams, who often have to handle an overwhelming volume of routine tasks.

“Lawyers are too often viewed as a ‘necessary friction’.  A risk mitigation that the business needs to accept if they want to operate like an adult.  While they bring incredible value, there is little tolerance for the perception that they are slowing down the company,” says the company.

The company’s platform provides customised policies, approvals, and comprehensive oversight of responses.

The Scottish company streamlines the drafting of legal responses, analyses documents using markups, and automates contract redlining.

“Our goal is simple. To build the ultimate legal command centre for in-house lawyers, that lets them accelerate everyone around them,” says the company.

The platform also offers immediate feedback to commercial teams, tailors reviews to address privacy concerns and facilitates quick assessments of third-party documents by procurement teams.

The investor

Index Ventures is a venture capital firm that helps entrepreneurs turn bold ideas into transformative international businesses. 

Since 1996, the VC claims to have partnered with exceptional entrepreneurs in Europe, the US, and Israel, who are using technology to reshape the world. 

The companies they’ve started include Adyen, Deliveroo, Dropbox, Farfetch, King, Slack, and Supercell.

Hannah Seal, the partner at Index Ventures, says, “Wordsmith is at the vanguard of a fundamental shift in how professional services are delivered. It’s not about replacement but augmentation. By harnessing the power of generative AI, they’re not only transforming the legal industry, but also paving the way for a future in which AI-assisted professionals can provide better, faster, and more affordable services to their clients.”