Texas-headquartered information management firm M-Files has acquired Espoo-based, no code document automation startup Ment for an undisclosed figure, it announced in a statement last week. The acquisition will provide M-Files’ customers with access to Ment’s document automation software — which is currently available either as a standalone product or as a complement to M-Files’ existing platform, the statement notes. It will enable Ment to expand its offerings globally, founder and CEO Kaisa Kromhof is quoted as saying. Collectively, Ment and M-Files will “empower legal professionals to achieve faster throughput and increase efficiency,” Kromhof adds.
Ment allows users to automate documents in minutes, using a visually-interfacing platform. Users answer questions and fill in information using a sidebar to automate their documents, without coding knowledge needed. Users can also create and share templates with third-party customers or partners, to generate information and produce content securely and in a way that complies with best practice, Ment notes on its website.
The startup was founded in 2016 by Kromhof — a Finnish lawyer and entrepreneur — with the aim of simplifying life for lawyers by automating some of their most repetitive and time-consuming work, including contract creation and management. Ment helps to automate complex documents, creates automated playbooks, optimizes processes, and ultimately helps organizations digitize, the statement notes. Users can build their own clause library to easily access institutional knowledge, and track the documents their organizations — and client organizations — produce, using a dashboard.
M-Files is a document management platform that uses metadata to help users build documents, find information and automate business processes. It provides industry-specific documents in sectors including accounting, tax and audit, life sciences, financial services, manufacturing and engineering.
Looking ahead, we can expect the completion of a “phased integration” of Ment into M-Files’ document management platform. Under the M-Files umbrella, Ment’s offerings could also be extended beyond their primary purpose of contract creation — specifically to other industries beyond the legal sector, the statement tells us.