Harvey, the AI legal assistant startup, has announced $100 million in Series C funding, rocketing its valuation to $1.5 billion. GV (Google Ventures) led the round, with OpenAI, Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital, Elad Gil, and SV Angel joining the action. This is more than double Harvey's valuation from December when the company raised $80 million in a Series B.
Last month, reports suggested that Harvey was aiming for a much larger funding round of $600 million at a valuation of at least $2 billion. The startup had plans to use this capital to acquire vLex, a legal research service, to enhance its AI products. However, those plans fell through, leading to a smaller funding round at a lower valuation.
Still, this cash infusion is significant, and brings Harvey's total funding to $206 million, cementing its unicorn status just two years after launch. Co-founders Winston Weinberg and Gabriel Pereyra aren't wasting time - they're already plotting to use this war chest to supercharge their AI tech and push into new markets.
"We're going all in on building the most trusted AI platform for professional services," Weinberg and Pereyra said in a blog post sharing the announcement. They're eyeing serious expansion: beefing up their engineering team, training specialized AI models, and partnering with more cloud and model providers.
Harvey's secret sauce? An AI assistant powered by OpenAI's GPT-4 that tackles everything from answering tricky legal questions to combing through trial transcripts and drafting court filings. It's caught on fast - the startup claims it's tripled revenue since December and now serves tens of thousands of lawyers daily at big-name firms like Allen & Overy and PwC.
As AI has muscled its way into professional services, Harvey's massive funding round is turning heads. It signals growing faith in AI's potential to shake up legal work. But it also raises the stakes - can Harvey deliver on its promises while navigating the ethical minefield of AI in law?