Henchman raises £6 million Series A to support tomorrow's lawyer with AI

GHENT, Belgium, March 2, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Belgian legal tech company Henchman announced it has closed a £6 million Series A funding round. The round is led by Adjacent VC and Acton Capital, joined by London-based Conviction VC and several business angels (including the founders of Showpad, a Belgian success story). The funding follows Henchman's recent GPT-3 integration and will be used to strengthen its focus on innovation and expand geographically.

Legal professionals rarely start from a blank sheet of paper when drafting contracts or negotiating details with other parties. They usually reference existing documentation, for which they need to sift through countless old contracts or talk to colleagues to find suitable precedents that could be relevant to their case. Henchman solves this problem by automatically centralizing past clauses and definitions from any legal team's contract database (whether law firm or corporate legal department) and delivering them intelligently in lawyers' familiar Microsoft Word or Outlook environments.

The founders, Jorn Vanysacker, Gilles Mattelin, and Wouter Van Respaille started working on Henchman during the COVID-pandemic. The solution has been on a remarkable trajectory since launching in June 2021 and has experienced rapid adoption last year: 750% revenue growth, a team growing from 12 to 35 employees, and over 100 customers in 15 countries (including UK clients like Avery Law, Mercuræ, and Marlborough House Partners).

While tech companies struggle with layoffs worldwide, the legal tech start-up is thriving. Henchman helps the lawyer of the future provide added value and expertise. "When everyone was still talking about ChatGPT, we implemented the technology in Henchman," says Gilles Mattelin, Henchman founder. This AI feature lets lawyers use Henchman to enrich contracts with new suggestions, translations or grammatical adaptations. 

The capital injection will be used to stay ahead of the competition and expand globally. To make that happen, the company brought new investors on board: the US-based Adjacent VC (which previously invested in companies like BeReal and Revolut) and the German Acton Capital (which previously funded Clio and Etsy), are taking the lead in this investment round, with participation from several business angels, including Louis Jonckheere & Pieterjan Bouten (founders Showpad), Felix Van de Maele (founder Collibra) and Bram Couvreur (partner at US-based law firm Cooley). 

"After some reference calls we saw that Henchman's power lies within how perfectly the product fits into the legal professionals' existing workflow. It's rare to see a SaaS company win international clients this early on, but the teams' customer obsession is driving great adoption in both Europe and the US. I'm excited to team up as we scale to the next level!" says Nico Wittenborn, Investor at Adjacent VC. 

Louis Jonckheere, private investor and Showpad founder, is optimistic: "The legal profession is entering a new age with AI. I'm bullish about Henchman's ability to take a leading role in this transformation. They have the team, technology and traction to become a dominant global player."

henchman.io

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