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Image Credits:Wordsmith / Founders Robbie Falkenthal (left), Ross McNairn (middle), Volodymyr Giginiak (right)
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Wordsmith , a fledgling Scottish legal technical school inauguration , has somehow managed to attract the support of two well - known venture capital house . The inauguration targets in - house sound teams and law firm with an AI weapons platform that they can configure to aid other workers in the ship’s company . This way , anyone in the society can solicit assist with legal labor such as review contract and answer specific questions about a document .
Incorporated inOctober last year , the Edinburgh - establish company is the handiwork of former senior TravelPerk executivesRoss McNairn(CEO ) andRobbie Falkenthal(COO ) , alongside CTOVolodymyr Giginiak , who served in various engineering roles at Microsoft , Facebook and Instagram . Six calendar month after leaving their previous posture , Wordsmith already claims notable customers , such as Trustpilot , while it ’s partnering with at least one major constabulary firm — DLA Piper .
This early grip has garner the attention ofglobal VC firm Index Ventures , which has led a $ 5 million seeded player investment into Wordsmith alongsideGeneral Catalystand Gareth Williams , founder and former CEO ofScottish tech unicorn Skyscanner .
That such a young Scots inauguration has secured the funding of two VC firms that have together with invested in the the like of Facebook , Slack , Sonos , Airbnb , Stripe and Snap talk not only to Wordsmith ’s other promise , but also the founders ’ pedigrees . Prior to TravelPerk , McNairn founded a locomotion direction inauguration called Dorsai Travel . He sell it to Skyscanner just nine month after launching and became Skyscanner ’s principal of ware . He then joined another unicorn , secondhand shopping app LetGo , before landing at TravelPerk .
On top of this , McNairn is also a restricted lawyer , a professing he left after a couple of years to become a software system engineer .
Legally fond
The legal tech distance is spicy . In the preceding six month alone we ’ve see several “ atomic number 27 - cowcatcher for lawyers ” emerge , such asHarvey AIin the U.S. andLuminancein the U.K. Other effectual technical school startups , such asDefinelyandLawhivein the U.K. , have raised decent seed and Series A rounds , as have Alexi(Canada ) andLeya AI(Sweden ) .
These companies are tackling the effectual sphere from various Angle and regional focal point , but they have one thing in plebeian : They ’re all mount the reproductive AI moving ridge .
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As with other paperwork - heavy sectors , sound eaglesare seeking waysto automate repetitive , labor - intensive work , so that they can focus on more strategical tasks . This is where Wordsmith enters the fray , providing what it calls a “ lawyer - in - the - loop ” procreative AI platform .
WhileHarvey AIis targeting lawyers themselves , Wordsmith is aimed more at employee within a company , with legal teams configuring the political program behind the vista by tie it to all their own data generator . Lawyers stay on available when needed .
McNairn draws comparisons tosomething like TravelPerk , which gives SMEs a ego - serve business traveling management chopine that give up manager to define the policy and approval process . Employees do all their own reservation within those parameters .
“ At TravelPerk one of the handsome footprint [ we made ] was that we went from trying to speed up the travel team by selling them slightly good tooling , to basically activate the rest of the business to self - Christian Bible , ” McNairn tell apart TechCrunch . “ And then the travelling squad just administrated , checked and made certain that it was calibrated correctly . And that shift of building tools just for the function , rather to build up pecker for the eternal rest of the business to forge more effectively , is a huge alteration in how you work . ”
Companies can configure Wordsmith in two core manner : as an robot pilot for simpler matter that do n’t need expert oversight , and as a Colorado - pilot whereby a lawyer is always in the grummet to give their seal of approval before any conventional reception are provided .
A typical workflow might involve someone in sales involve to scrutinize a fresh contract , or perhaps procurement taste to close down a mountain and who needs access to information such as the company ’s security system posture — the kinds of doubtfulness that are moderately standard and where the reply are n’t probable to change much . By query Wordsmith , anyone can get the necessary data .
Other potential utilisation case might include someone issuing a company with a dependent access asking ( SAR ) , wherebybusinesses in certain jurisdiction are de jure hold to honorrequests related to personal data accession . In this instance , Wordsmith could be configure to accept a submission and connect to a society ’s ticketing organization , and react either with the call for information , or with a templet response outlining timescales and the next steps — whatever a company ’s interior guidelines and processes dictate .
Model behavior
Wordsmith expend a combination of foundational large language models ( LLMs ) , includingOpenAI ’s GPT-4andAnthropic ’s Claude .
“ We use the right one for the line , ” McNairn said . “ Some are really honorable at analyzing thing like system of logic within legal agreements , and some are really good at being extremely precise on helping us to change spoken communication . Claude is very good at excuse through problems , and OpenAI ( GPT-4 ) is just all - round fantastic , with different attribute . ”
go-ahead have showna little trepidationat embracing reproductive AI , which McNairn said the company is addressing in different ways . This includes allowing companies to specify that their data does n’t leave the EU . It also promises not to trail its AI on companies ’ datum . Wordsmith configures a “ individual instance ” for enterprises , think it connects in to data point wherever it is ( e.g. Google Drive or Notion ) to improve a answer using a company ’s own information , but this datum is n’t used to train the modelling for other companies .
“ We practice atechnique called RAG(retrieval augmented genesis ) , ” McNairn enunciate . “ So we ’re not training on their data — we ’re just using it when it ’s necessary . We call in it , use it to enrich the answer , and then give them a response . ”
High frequency
While raise in - house legal squad will be Wordsmith ’s core goal ab initio , the company is also looking to work with law firms , as manifest by its early tie - up with DLA Piper . In this instance , DLA — a global billion - dollar sound human dynamo — is co - developing AI agent in partnership with Wordsmith , with a view toward distributing this to its own client .
So in effect , they are inputting their own proficient knowledge to improve Wordsmith for very specific effectual knowledge domain . It could become something that they can sell on as a new case of sound service , presumably at a lower rate .
“ It ’s high-pitched frequence and lower monetary value to engage with firms ’ cognition in this way , rather than paying thousands of dollar an hour , ” McNairn said . “ It ’s [ also ] a much good fashion to show they are reform-minded and looking to adopt AI . ”
This business simulation could puzzle out particularly well for little - to - midsize law house , where Wordsmith could be enlist to capture big jobs or take on more clients .
McNairn say that while this offering is still in its early design stages with DLA , Wordsmith will in all probability commercialize this soon . “ It ’s just not there yet , ” he said .
With $ 5 million in the savings bank , McNairn suppose that Wordsmith will now accelerate its hiring both in Scotland and the U.S. The company matter nine employee today , and while some are based in London and/or in the outgrowth of moving up , McNairn says he ’s keen to make Edinburgh the company ’s center of gravity .
“ It ’s the ecosystem affair I ’m quite passionate about , ” he enunciate . “ There have been three unicorns that I ’ve been part of before this , and I just want to work up something cool in Scotland . ”
