According to Forbes, former Google AI researchers Paulina Granarova, Kevin Roth, and Yannic Kilcher have raised $41 million in Series A funding for their legal tech startup DeepJudge, valuing the company at $300 million. The Zurich-based company, founded in 2020, builds customized search indexes of law firms’ confidential archives that plug into existing AI models like ChatGPT. The funding round was led by Felicis with prior investor Coatue participating, and comes as the company expands into the U.S. market with clients including Freshfields, Holland & Knight, and Gunderson Dettmer. DeepJudge’s system specifically addresses the hallucination problem that’s particularly dangerous for legal work, with over 120 cases of AI hallucinations in court filings identified since 2023.
The Legal AI Arms Race Is On
Here’s the thing – DeepJudge is entering an absolutely explosive market. While they just landed $41 million at a $300 million valuation, that’s practically pocket change compared to what’s happening elsewhere. Harvey just closed $150 million at an $8 billion valuation, and Legora raised $150 million at $1.8 billion. We’re talking about massive money flowing into legal AI right now.
And honestly, it makes sense. Law firms have been sitting on gold mines of proprietary data for decades – all those contracts, deals, and case files that never see the public internet. The problem? They couldn’t effectively search through it. Before tools like DeepJudge, lawyers at firms like Gunderson Dettmer had to manually open dozens of document versions just to find what they needed. That’s insane when you’re dealing with nearly 2,000 financial transactions in just a few years.
Why This Actually Matters Beyond The Hype
The real innovation here isn’t just another AI wrapper – it’s the indexing system that takes up to three weeks to build for each client. DeepJudge is basically creating Google Search for a law firm’s private data. When a lawyer asks “Who’s our expert on this in London?” or “When have we done a deal like this before?”, the AI can actually reference that custom index instead of making stuff up.
And hallucinations? That’s the killer feature nobody’s talking about enough. Caryn Marooney from Coatue put it perfectly: “Legal of all things really can’t afford the hallucinations.” With over 120 documented cases of AI making up information in court filings since 2023, this isn’t some theoretical problem. It’s happening right now, and it’s destroying credibility.
What Comes Next In This Gold Rush
So where does this leave us? DeepJudge has the ex-Google credibility and now serious funding, but they’re up against some heavily capitalized competitors. The fact that they’re focusing on building those custom indexes rather than trying to replace existing AI models is smart – it means law firms don’t have to rip and replace their current tech stack.
But here’s my question: how many of these legal AI startups can the market actually support? We’re seeing valuations skyrocket while many law firms are still just dipping their toes in the water. DeepJudge’s expansion into the U.S. with a bigger sales team makes sense, but they’ll need to move fast. The legal AI space is heating up, and only the solutions that actually solve real problems – not just add AI buzzwords – will survive when the hype cycle inevitably cools.
