Houston—Legal IT firm CS Disco announced today it has raised $18.75 million in a Series C funding round, accounting for just over half of its total investment raised of $35 million.
Private equity firm The Stephens Group in Little Rock, AR, led the round, with participation from existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners in Menlo Park, CA, and Austin, TX-based LiveOak Venture Partners. The funding will be used to further develop CS Disco’s machine-learning software as well as to expand its sales force in major U.S. cities, according to a company press release.
CS Disco, launched in 2013, has created tools aimed at helping lawyers wade through the millions of Microsoft Word files, PowerPoint slideshows, and e-mails typically unearthed in business litigation. Founder Kiwi Camara thought of the idea after he balked at paying what he considered exorbitant fees by a document discovery company he was using.
CS Disco says customers can purchase its services for less than $100,000. That’s a bargain relative to some of the company’s competitors, who Camara has said charge anywhere from $350,000 to $700,000 per case. The idea is to make the search and find process easier, freeing up attorneys to devote their time and brainpower to analyzing the documents.
“We can fix the way the law is practiced by introducing great legal technology,” Camara told me in early 2014.
The Houston-based startup last raised $10 million in a Series B round in November 2014. CS Disco has 300 law firms as customers and has more than doubled its employee count in the last two years to 66.
