Latest news with #vLex
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Clio to acquire legal intelligence provider vLex in $1bn deal
Canadian legal software company Clio has agreed to acquire vLex, a Spain-based legal intelligence provider, for $1bn, payable in cash and stock. Established in 2000, vLex, part of Oakley Capital's portfolio, offers a global legal research platform powered by AI. It serves clients in more than 110 countries with tools like Vincent, used by numerous legal teams, including Am Law 100 firms, courts, and law societies. Vincent operates on vLex's database of more than one billion legal documents, supporting cross-jurisdictional research, audio and video analysis, legal theory testing, and tailored workflows. Clio CEO and founder Jack Newton said: 'For 17 years, we've built the foundational platform that enables law firms to operate at their highest potential. With vLex, we're building on that foundation with technology that understands the substance of the law. 'By bringing together the business and practice of law in a unified platform, we're revolutionising every aspect of legal work.' The acquisition, Clio's largest to date, integrates vLex's research platform with Clio's system, used by over 200,000 legal professionals, to combine legal management and research functions. The transaction, which is expected to close later in 2025, is subject to standard conditions and regulatory approvals. vLexCEO and co-founder Lluis Faus said: 'Together with Clio, we have a bold vision for the future that empowers legal professionals to go beyond traditional research and operational silos, harnessing deeper intelligence and broader impact.' Goldman Sachs served as Clio's exclusive financial advisor, with legal counsel provided by Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, and Gowling. "Clio to acquire legal intelligence provider vLex in $1bn deal " was originally created and published by Verdict, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Legal software company Clio drops $1B on law data giant vLex
On Monday, Clio, a 17-year-old Canadian law firm management software company, announced that it has agreed to acquire vLex, a 26-year-old legal data intelligence platform, in a $1 billion cash-and-stock deal. The announcement comes about a year after Clio's massive $900 million funding round, which nearly doubled the Vancouver, British Columbia-based company's valuation from $1.6 billion in 2021 to $3 billion. vLex, which was largely bootstrapped until it was purchased by private equity firm Oakley Capital in 2022, has been a highly sought-after asset, according to Jack Newton, CEO and founder of Clio. Harvey, the AI-native legal tech startup, attempted to purchase vLex a year ago, but the acquisition didn't come together, as reported by The Information last July. vLex is a valuable property because its database of legal documents can greatly improve AI models for lawyers. 'Data is one of the only long-term defensible competitive moats a company can have in the space,' Newton told TechCrunch. vLex competes with the Thomson Reuters-owned legal database and LexisNexis. The acquisition comes shortly after Harvey announced a partnership with LexisNexis, aiming to enrich Harvey's AI with LexisNexis data. With the acquisition of vLex, Clio, which provides law firms with time-tracking, invoicing, and electronic payment tools, is now effectively stepping into the practice of law itself. Over the last few years, vLex has built Vincent, an AI model built on top of the company's legal content database. 'AI is going to drive a convergence of what have historically been distinct categories of software: the business of law and the practice of law,' Newton said. He added that Clio's clients in the small and medium law firm segment will now have access to Vincent's AI capabilities. In addition to announcing plans to acquire vLex, Clio said it has reached $300 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR). Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
TechCrunch
01-07-2025
- Business
- TechCrunch
Legal software company Clio drops $1B on law data giant vLex
On Monday, Clio, a 17-year-old Canadian law firm management software company, announced that it has agreed to acquire vLex, a 26-year-old legal data intelligence platform, in a $1 billion cash-and-stock deal. The announcement comes about a year after Clio's massive $900 million funding round, which nearly doubled the Vancouver, British Columbia-based company's valuation from $1.6 billion in 2021 to $3 billion. vLex, which was largely bootstrapped until it was purchased by private equity firm Oakley Capital in 2022, has been a highly sought-after asset, according to Jack Newton, CEO and founder of Clio. Harvey, the AI-native legal tech startup, attempted to purchase vLex a year ago, but the acquisition didn't come together, as reported by The Information last July. vLex is a valuable property because its database of legal documents can greatly improve AI models for lawyers. 'Data is one of the only long-term defensible competitive moats a company can have in the space,' Newton told TechCrunch. vLex competes with the Thomson Reuters-owned legal database and LexisNexis. The acquisition comes shortly after Harvey announced a partnership with LexisNexis, aiming to enrich Harvey's AI with LexisNexis data. Techcrunch event Save $450 on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Save $200+ on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Boston, MA | REGISTER NOW With the acquisition of vLex, Clio, which provides law firms with time-tracking, invoicing, and electronic payment tools, is now effectively stepping into the practice of law itself. Over the last few years, vLex has built Vincent, an AI model built on top of the company's legal content database. 'AI is going to drive a convergence of what have historically been distinct categories of software: the business of law and the practice of law,' Newton said. He added that Clio's clients in the small and medium law firm segment will now have access to Vincent's AI capabilities. In addition to announcing plans to acquire vLex, Clio said it has reached $300 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR).
Globe and Mail
30-06-2025
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Clio buys AI legal tech vendor vLex for $1-billion in second major deal of 2025
Legal software company Clio, one of Canada's largest private software companies, has made its second transformative acquisition of the year, paying US$1-billion for vLex LLC, the maker of an artificial intelligence tool that keeps lawyers from accidentally citing fake court rulings. The deal expands Burnaby, B.C.-based Clio (officially named Themis Solutions), which sells practice management software to lawyers, into a new business and for the second time this year at least doubles its potential addressable market. It also pits Clio against heavyweight rivals: Canadian legal software giant Thomson Reuters Corp. and Relx PLC's LexisNexis unit. (Thomson Reuters' controlling shareholder, the Thomson family, own The Globe and Mail) The acquisition, Clio's sixth, brings 'the business of law and the practice of law capability under one roof,' chief executive Jack Newton said in an interview. 'We are reforming the company and reshaping it with AI at its heart. It puts us on an entirely new trajectory.' Clio said Monday it had signed a definitive agreement to buy Barcelona-based vLex from European private equity firm Oakley Capital for stock and cash. Clio prevailed in a competitive process, winning out over at least one other party, San Francisco AI startup Harvey. The deal is expected to close this year. Mr. Newton declined to comment on how Clio, with US$300-million in annual recurring revenue, would finance the deal, nor did he provide any financial information about vLex. Clio does have debt facilities and deep-pocketed backers including New Enterprise Associates, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, TCV, JMI Equity and T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. Until now, Clio has sold what it calls an operating system for law firms. Its cloud-based platform is used by lawyers to manage their practices, including scheduling, bookkeeping, accounting, billing, client onboarding, document and case file management and advertising. The profitable company is one of more than 70 private Canadian tech enterprises that have surpassed US$100-million in annual revenue, and a likely candidate to go public when markets warm up. Last year Clio did a US$900-million secondary financing that saw NEA buy out employees and early investors in a deal larger than most Canadian initial public offerings. During its first 17 years Clio focused on small to medium-sized law practices. Then in March it bought Manchester, U.K.-based Sliced Bread Ltd., whose Sharedo product targets larger, global law firms. The deal doubled Clio's potential market size. More than 200,000 lawyers now use Clio's practice management products. vLex is a different business. The 350-person company, founded in 2000 by brothers Lluís and Angel Faus, maintains a global law library of one-billion-plus legal documents. vLex focused outside the U.S. until 2023, a year after its sale to Oakley, when it merged with Washington, D.C.-based Fastcase, giving it access to more than one million lawyers in the world's largest economy. At the same time, vLex was developing a generative AI-based virtual assistant known as Vincent for legal professionals to automatically read cases, create research memos, build arguments, flag potential legal issues, cite authorities and draft documents. Thomson Reuters and LexisNexis have created similar tools while also building in features to prevent a common problem with generative AI: its propensity to make up answers. Those so-called hallucinations have led to embarrassment for lawyers when they filed documents in court citing fictional cases conjured up by AI. Nonetheless, lawyers are rapidly adopting AI tools and buying vLex 'establishes for Clio one of the most important strategic advantages in the age of AI, which is a durable data moat,' given the acquired company's vast law library, Mr. Newton said. He said Vincent, which is used by thousands of lawyers, 'enables for fully hallucination-free AI where citations are grounded in case law and lawyers can rest easy that' what it produces is trustworthy. Vincent is still a nascent business with revenues that are 'not that relevant,' Mr. Newton said. He described Clio's investment as 'a venture bet. It's this extremely early but extremely promising and rapidly growing AI capability and business they're building that we acquired here.' Clio was advised by Goldman Sachs and law firms Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and Gowling WLG. vLex used J.P. Morgan as its financial advisor.
Bloomberg
30-06-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Legal Software Startup Clio to Acquire VLex for $1 Billion
Canadian software company Themis Solutions Inc. struck a deal to buy legal data and research company vLex LLC for $1 billion in cash and shares. Themis, which is better known by its operating name Clio, helps lawyers manage their practices by automating processes such as client intake, accounting and document management. The acquisition will give it control of vLex's artificial intelligence platform, known as Vincent, which is based on its huge database of legal documents, according to a statement Monday that announced the transaction.
