logo
Exclusive-Legal startup Harvey AI in talks to raise funding at $5 billion valuation

Exclusive-Legal startup Harvey AI in talks to raise funding at $5 billion valuation

CNA14-05-2025
-Harvey AI, a fast-growing legal startup, is in advanced talks to raise over $250 million in a new round of funding at a valuation of $5 billion, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The funding round, led by venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins and Coatue, would mark a significant leap in Harvey's valuation from $3 billion in just a few months. Sequoia Capital, an existing backer, is also expected to increase its investment in this round.
Investor interest in Harvey is driven by the company's revenue growth, according to people with knowledge of the company's numbers. Its annualized run rate reached $75 million in April, up from $50 million earlier this year.
This 50 per cent increase in a matter of months has been fueled by strategic partnerships with major consulting firms like PwC as well as direct sales to large corporations for in-house general counsel use, said the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss private information.
Harvey, Coatue and Sequoia did not respond to requests for comment. Kleiner Perkins declined to comment.
Harvey, founded in 2022, has become one of the most high-profile legal startups in the age of generative AI.
The company uses AI models and machine-learning algorithms to assist lawyers and legal professionals in various tasks, including document review, contract drafting and legal research.
It has focused on selling to elite law firms and the biggest corporations, and building specific modules for tasks such as M&A compliance.
The startup, which began by partnering with OpenAI to build a custom-trained model for legal professionals, announced this week that it expanded its offerings by adding foundation models from Anthropic and Google to its platform.
The round, once finalized, would mark a doubling down in Harvey for Kleiner Perkins, which co-led Harvey's $80 million Series B in December 2023.
The adoption of AI technology has fueled surging interest from venture capital investors in the legal sector, which used to be overlooked by VCs for not having a growing addressable market and being dominated by a handful of big players.
In 2024, global investments in legal technology startups reached $2.1 billion, according to data from Crunchbase. The enthusiasm has grown, with February 2025 seeing one of the highest investment totals in U.S. legal tech history.
This surge in funding reflects the increasing adoption of AI and other advanced technologies in the legal industry, as firms seek to improve efficiency, reduce costs and enhance the quality of their services in an increasingly competitive market.
Goldman Sachs analysts estimated last year that about 44 per cent of legal work could eventually be automated.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

China state media asks Nvidia to prove H20 chips are secure
China state media asks Nvidia to prove H20 chips are secure

Business Times

time24 minutes ago

  • Business Times

China state media asks Nvidia to prove H20 chips are secure

[HONG KONG] China state media is calling for Nvidia to prove that its H20 chip is secure, saying it cannot allow flawed chips into the country. China's top Internet watchdog summoned Nvidia representatives earlier this week to discuss what Chinese officials called significant security vulnerabilities in the H20. The Cyberspace Administration of China said that Nvidia would need to explain potential security risks and provide documents as needed, citing comments by US lawmakers about the need to install tracking capabilities on advanced chips being exported. 'As soon as 'backdoors' in chips are triggered, we can encounter a 'nightmare',' the People's Daily, a mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist Party, said in a commentary on Friday (Aug 1). 'We need to maintain the security of the cyberspace and we cannot allow 'infected' chips to be put to work.' More scrutiny of the artificial intelligence (AI) chip would throw a wrench China's already-contentious trade talks with the US. Santa Clara, California-based Nvidia had designed the H20 to comply with US export controls on its technology, and the company was hoping to start sales after the US granted a license. 'Cybersecurity is critically important to us,' Nvidia said on Thursday. 'Nvidia does not have 'backdoors' in our chips that would give anyone a remote way to access or control them.' US and Chinese officials met in Stockholm this week to discuss trade terms in talks that Chinese state media said that 'deepened mutual trust', though the two sides still have several disagreements over the potential new tariffs. The warning in People's Daily may signal that Chinese officials don't find H20s, which are less powerful than Nvidia's most high-end chips, to be worthy offerings. The Trump administration in April barred Nvidia from selling H20s to China in an escalation of the ongoing tech war between the world's two largest economies. Trump officials then pledged to lift those restrictions in July as part of a trade deal for China to allow more sales of rare-earth magnets needed to make a range of high-tech products. US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had touted the resumption of sales of the H20 as a breakthrough that came from bilateral discussions in London, framing it as a concession to China. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, meanwhile, said earlier this week that the magnet issue has been 'solved'. However, it is unclear whether Nvidia has received licenses to resume shipping those semiconductors. Nvidia boss Jensen Huang himself recently concluded a high-profile visit to Beijing, where he feted national Chinese champions such as DeepSeek and celebrated the country's rising prowess in AI. The billionaire had denied Nvidia installed backdoors in its product, saying that would not make business sense. BLOOMBERG

AI cannot supplant learning; it must enable it: Desmond Lee
AI cannot supplant learning; it must enable it: Desmond Lee

Straits Times

time3 hours ago

  • Straits Times

AI cannot supplant learning; it must enable it: Desmond Lee

Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox SINGAPORE – Young people need to develop strong judgment, reasoning abilities and foundational knowledge, even as artificial intelligence (AI) tools are able to perform both mundane and complex tasks, said Minister for Education Desmond Lee. AI cannot supplant learning – it must enable it, he said to the media on July 8 at Oasis Primary School in Punggol, in his first school visit since his appointment as education minister. Other key priorities for the Ministry of Education (MOE) include helping students develop social and emotional skills and effect a 'generational shift' away from competition based on grades and towards a passion for learning. Mr Lee cited the example of how AI could help young lawyers draft submissions, but only those with proper training and experience are able to assess and improve on the AI output. Mr Lee, accompanied by Oasis Primary School principal Danny Poh and Oasis Primary English head of department Munirah Eszham, during his first school visit in the role. ST PHOTO: AZMI ATHNI 'You can tell what is right, what is wrong. What is real and what is not, and what is right for your situation,' he said. To this end, Mr Lee said it is important to prepare children for an AI-pervasive future, while also fostering in them curiosity and social-emotional skills. This would first require the age-appropriate use of AI in classrooms and teaching children about what AI is and its limits. With social and emotional skills becoming increasingly important – not just in school, but also in workplaces and the wider community – this is another area of focus for MOE . Mr Lee said: 'All these social-emotional skills can be more important than just your academic hard knowledge.' These include compassion, expressing oneself appropriately, navigating challenging environments and being able to self-regulate and empathise with others. At Oasis Primary School, Mr Lee observed Primary 4 English and art lessons that demonstrated how the school integrates social-emotional skills into these subjects. During the English lesson, pupils used the popular young adult book Wonder – about a boy with facial deformities – as a springboard to share how they would feel if they faced discrimination. For the art lesson, pupils worked in groups to come up with a superhero logo based on values. Mr Lee said such approaches bring lessons to life. 'It doesn't just give our children the foundation in the subject, but also uses the opportunity to get them to think critically, think thoughtfully, to engage with classmates and to think about how they relate to people who are different from themselves,' he said. By including group work, these activities go beyond nurturing individual creativity, and encourages pupils to collaborate and share ideas with each other, he added. 'You can see leadership in action. You see collaboration in action, cooperation, give and take and also working towards a product that is bigger than the sum of the individual parts. So that was very encouraging,' the minister said. On MOE's efforts to shift away from an emphasis on competition around grades so that students can develop a lifelong passion for learning, he said: 'It will take time, and we require three parties to play a part – our pre-schools, primary schools as well as our parents.' Another key area is how schools can better partner with the community to support children from more challenging backgrounds, such as those whose families are beneficiaries of ComLink+, a scheme to support lower-income households. Likening the approach to a triangle comprising housing, education and jobs and skills, Mr Lee said these areas are where these families need help. 'I think it will give them a better shot in achieving stability, self-reliance and, ultimately, social mobility.' Mr Lee said there is a need to strengthen the transition from pre-school to primary school, especially through MOE kindergartens. ST PHOTO: AZMI ATHNI Visiting the MOE Kindergarten (MK) located at Oasis Primary School, Mr Lee also said there is a need to strengthen the transition from pre-school to primary school, especially through MKs. 'Our pre-school landscape is diverse and rich, and we are the better off for it. But MKs allow an opportunity to test-bed ideas for us to be able to look at enhancements to pre-school pedagogies,' he said. He noted that many parents appreciate MKs sitting within primary schools, as many pre-schoolers go on to attend primary schools near their homes. Madam Nur Liyana Saine, 38, whose daughter Faiha Fatiha, eight, had moved from MK@Oasis to Primary 1 in the same school, said the child's familiarity with the environment made the move easier. Mathematics and science teacher Nur Liyana Saine at Oasis Primary School, with her daughter Faiha Fatiha. ST PHOTO: AZMI ATHNI 'She knew what to expect, like where to go during morning flag-raising and reading time, because she had experienced it in MK,' said Madam Liyana, who is a mathematics and science teacher at Oasis Primary School. 'For a six-year-old, big spaces like the school hall can be intimidating. But because she had been there for events like Chinese New Year celebrations, it felt familiar,' she added. The MK programme was started in 2014 to provide quality pre-school education that is affordable to Singaporeans. Among other goals, it aims to 'encourage bilingualism in the early years and help lay a strong foundation for language learning in the later years', the ministry had said previously. An MOE spokesperson said the ministry plans to open 60 MKs by 2029. After observing mother tongue lessons at MK@Oasis, Mr Lee reiterated that bilingualism remains a key strength for Singapore and that early exposure to mother tongue languages is crucial. 'It gives us a cultural ballast and richness in our identity. And from a utilitarian, pragmatic point of view, it connects us with the region and the world,' he said. He added that as a largely English-speaking environment, schools must be deliberate in supporting the use of mother tongue languages. 'When you start young, we have a better chance of that following us all through life.'

Meta to share AI infrastructure costs via US$2 billion asset sale
Meta to share AI infrastructure costs via US$2 billion asset sale

Business Times

time5 hours ago

  • Business Times

Meta to share AI infrastructure costs via US$2 billion asset sale

[NEW YORK] Meta Platforms is pressing ahead with efforts to bring in outside partners to help fund the massive infrastructure needed to power artificial intelligence (AI), disclosing plans in a filing on Thursday (Jul 31) to offload US$2 billion in data centre assets as part of that strategy. The strategy reflects a broader shift among tech giants, long known for self-funding growth, as they grapple with the soaring cost of building and powering data centres to support generative AI. The social media giant said earlier this week that it was exploring ways to work with financial partners to co-develop data centres to help finance its massive capital outlay for next year. 'We are exploring ways to work with financial partners to co-develop data centres,' Meta chief finance officer Susan Li said on a post-earnings conference call on Wednesday. While the company still expects to fund much of its capital spending internally, some projects could attract 'significant external financing' and offer more flexibility if infrastructure needs shift over time, Li said. The company did not have any finalised transactions to announce, she said. The disclosure in Meta's quarterly filing, however, signals that plans are firming up. In its quarterly filing on Thursday, Meta said it had approved a plan in June to dispose of certain data centre assets and reclassified US$2.04 billion worth of land and construction-in-progress as 'held-for-sale'. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up These assets were expected to be contributed to a third party within the next twelve months for co-developing data centres. Meta did not record a loss on the reclassification, which values the assets at the lower of their carrying amounts or fair value less costs to sell. As at Jun 30, total held-for-sale assets stood at US$3.26 billion, according to the filing. Meta declined to comment for this story. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has laid out plans to invest hundreds of billions of dollars into constructing AI data centre 'superclusters' for superintelligence. 'Just one of these covers a significant part of the footprint of Manhattan,' he said. The Instagram and WhatsApp owner on Wednesday raised the bottom end of its annual capital expenditures forecast by US$2 billion, to US$66 billion to US$72 billion. It reported stronger-than-expected ad sales, boosted by AI-driven improvements to targeting and content delivery. Executives said that those gains were helping offset rising infrastructure costs tied to its long-term AI push. REUTERS

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store