Thomson Reuters has snapped up legal software provider HighQ, making good on plans to bolster its cloud-based software products after selling its legal managed services arm, Pangea3, to EY.
Thomson Reuters’ president and chief executive Jim Smith said the firm plans to integrate London-based HighQ with its own information services, enabling it to sell the product to ‘thousands’ of large and medium-sized law firms and corporate legal departments.
HighQ was founded in 2001 and is a secure file-sharing and collaboration platform already boasting more than 400 customers, including half of the Global 100 law firms. It has offices in the US, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia and India and in March joined Allen & Overy’s Fuse incubator in its latest cohort of technology start-ups.
Thomson Reuters has been eyeing up HighQ for some time, managing director Lucinda Case told Legal Business: ‘This deal is huge and transformational for us.’ The deal follows the information firm’s acquisition of audit services provider, Confirmation, in June.
Jim Leason (pictured), Thomson Reuters’ customer proposition lead, legal professionals Europe, added that divesting from Pangea3 in April had freed up investment, but would not disclose the cost of the acquisition.
He said the team would be taking its time to integrate HighQ: ‘Our customers face an explosion of legal technology. Buying HighQ gives us a foundational platform to integrate our own productivity tools with it.’
Elsewhere, AI-powered contract management company ContractPodAi yesterday (17 July) announced a $55m Series B investment round, Europe’s largest legal tech funding round of its kind. The money will be used to scale-up ContractPodAi’s products, which streamlines contract workflow for in-house legal teams.
Investment is being led by private equity firm Insight Partners with involvement from the company’s Series A backer, Dubai-based Eagle Proprietary Investments.
‘This new investment will allow us to take ContractPodAi to a much wider audience, serve our customers better and ensure we continue our rapid growth trajectory,’ said chief executive and co-founder Sarvarth Misra.
For more on Thomson Reuters, read ‘Big Beasts: Can law tech’s big beasts Lexis and Thomson stay on top in a changing industry?’ (£)
