Generative AI firm Harvey is continuing to make headlines, announcing last week that it had secured USD 21 million in Series A funding. The round was led by US venture capital firm Sequoia, with participation from the OpenAI Startup Fund. Conviction, SV Angel and Elad Gil also contributed to the funding round, Harvey said in its press release.
Harvey describes itself as building “custom large language models for law firms,” having been built on OpenAI’s language model GPT-4. In essence, Harvey uses generative AI to provide insights and recommendations based on large amounts of data. Lawyers can use it to automate or semi-automate basic tasks, like conducting research and drafting contracts. The platform was established in 2022 by co-founders Gabriel Pereyra and Winston Weinberg.
Harvey previously raised USD 5 million in November in a funding round led by the OpenAI Startup Fund, with participation from angel investors including Google AI lead Jeff Dean.
Usage of the platform by some of the world’s big legal players is seeing a steady uptick. Global law firm Allen & Overy is aiming to have some 3,500 lawyers and staff use Harvey to automate research and draft documents, it said in February. And major accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) is giving 4,000 of its legal professionals access to Harvey, it said in March.“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,” according to a statement issued by Sequoia last week. The VC firm describes Harvey as an “AI super app,” predicting that after penetrating the legal sector, it will see widespread usage among professional services firms, then in “all of knowledge work.”