The Stephens Group, LLC (“The Stephens Group”) announced that its existing investment platform DISCO has recently raised additional capital to support its growth. Legal technology company DISCO announced on January 24, 2019 an $83 million investment led by Georgian Partners, a Toronto-based venture-capital firm with deep expertise in applied artificial intelligence. Existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, LiveOak Venture Partners, Stephens Group, and venture-debt provider Comerica all participated in the round. Tyson Baber, a partner at Georgian Partners, joined DISCO’s board of directors.
DISCO has raised $135 million, more than any other enterprise legaltech company. This investment reflects the market’s consolidation behind DISCO as the leading cloud ediscovery platform, and the growing customer consensus that cloud ediscovery will replace legacy ediscovery services vendors and software providers.
The scale of this investment reflects investors’ belief that ediscovery is just the beginning: that legal technology will impact the entire $437 billion legal market. DISCO will use this investment to accelerate its growth in the $12.5 billion ediscovery market — and to bring its unique combination of world-class engineering and legal expertise to building products that transform other areas of legal practice.
“DISCO’s mission is to create technology to modernize the practice of law,” said DISCO founder and CEO Kiwi Camara. “Great legal technology helps great lawyers and legal teams deliver better legal outcomes for their clients. We do this in ediscovery today; over time, we will do this in all areas of legal practice.”
“Artificial intelligence is poised to transform the legal industry. As a trusted partner to hundreds of enterprise clients, DISCO is ahead of the curve in securely applying artificial intelligence,” said Tyson Baber, Partner at Georgian Partners. “We are excited to help DISCO accelerate as they drive the speed of innovation in this industry and find better ways to serve legal professionals around the world.”
“We are pleased to share the recent fundraising announcement from our partners at DISCO. The existing investors all participated in the round, and are excited to have Tyson Baber and Georgian Partners joining us as partners,” said Aaron Clark, Managing Director with The Stephens Group.
“Artificial Intelligence and cloud technology are driving big secular trends, and since we first met Kiwi and the team at DISCO it was apparent to us that they were going to be the company to bring all the benefits of new technology to the legal sector. They have executed exceptionally well so far, and the team is getting deeper and stronger every day.”
In addition to rapidly scaling up U.S. operations, DISCO will use this investment to continue aggressive international growth. DISCO opened its London office in October 2018 and plans to establish offices in Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Latin America over the next several years, both to serve local markets and to better serve its existing multinational clientele.
ABOUT DISCO
DISCO is a legal technology company that applies artificial intelligence and cloud computing to legal problems to help great lawyers and legal teams improve legal outcomes for their clients. Corporate legal departments, law firms, and government agencies around the world use DISCO as their ediscovery solution for compliance, disputes, and investigations. For more information, visit www.csdisco.com.
ABOUT GEORGIAN PARTNERS
Georgian Partners is a thesis-driven growth equity firm investing in SaaS-based business software companies exploiting applied artificial intelligence, conversational AI, and trust. Founded by successful entrepreneurs and technology executives, Georgian Partners leverages its global software expertise to be able to directly impact the success of companies. For more information, visit www.georgianpartners.com.
ABOUT THE STEPHENS GROUP, LLC
The Stephens Group, LLC is a private investment firm that partners with talented management teams to help build valuable businesses. Backed by the resources of the Stephens family, our team has a long history of providing sophisticated, strategic expertise and taking a partnership approach to help companies successfully achieve their strategic visions and build long-term value. With over $1.5 billion invested since 2006, The Stephens Group targets investments in industries across the U.S., including industrial and commercial products and services, specialty distribution, B2B food and consumer products, and technology infrastructure and tech-enabled services, as well as select opportunistic situations. For more information, visit www.stephensgroup.com.
CONTACT:
Ronald M. Clark
General Counsel
The Stephens Group, LLC
PressReleases@stephensgroup.com
501.377.3401