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With more than 15,000 law firms on Harvey’s waiting list, the start-up is using GPT-4 to create AI models focused on the legal services sector.
Harvey, a start-up developing AI for law firms, has raised $21m in a Series A funding round to scale up its team and build new AI systems.
The funding round was led by Sequoia and included participation OpenAI, through the company’s start-up fund. Other participants of the round were Conviction, SV Angel and Elad Gil.
The global legal services market was valued at roughly $901bn in 2021 and is expected to be enhanced by AI technology, which can be used to free up time for lawyers.
Harvey is using GPT-4 to develop its AI models. This is the latest large language model developed by OpenAI and is able to “solve difficult problems with greater accuracy”.
The legal AI start-up was founded last year and previously received a $5m funding round led by OpenAI’s start-up fund, Reuters reports.
Harvey has already attracted some large companies with its technology, including a partnership with PwC in March. The professional services firm plans to use Harvey to enhance the workflows of its legal professional network, which includes more than 4,000 staff.
PwC also plans to develop its own AI models with Harvey to create “customised products and services for its own use cases”.
Speaking on its services, Harvey said it collaborates with “entire firms” to find new ways to support lawyers with generative AI. The start-up said lawyers build their reputations on “the trust that they will deliver impeccable work on unreasonable deadlines”.
“To empower both, Harvey must build the same trust by developing AI systems that are not only powerful, but also scalable, transparent and secure,” Harvey said.
“We do so by building systems that replicate historic best practices for establishing trust in knowledge work – such as tiered review and the ability to incorporate natural language feedback – while pioneering novel systems for AI alignment and validation.
In a statement, Sequoia said there are currently more than 15,000 law firms on the waiting list to try Harvey’s AI technology.
“Harvey helps legal teams find leverage in time-consuming tasks like legal research, due diligence and more, allowing them to focus on client relationships and strategic work that truly moves the needle,” Sequoia said.
Last December, Johnson Hana CEO Dan Fox spoke to SiliconRepublic.com about his company, which uses a combination of lawyers, a custom platform and AI to reduce the legal spend of its clients by up to 50pc.
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