Coming off a successful pitch to investors at the DEMO 2012 conference in California, Stamford e-commerce startup eBrevia L.L.C. is close to completing an initial round of fundraising and plans to launch its legal technology platform in the next four months.
After teaming with researchers at Columbia University in September 2011 to develop a software platform aimed at expediting the legal review process for corporate mergers and acquisitions, the company is close to securing $400,000 in initial financing, said Ned Gannon, eBrevia co-founder and CEO.
“We”™ve gotten a number of commitments and we”™re hoping to close that in the near future,” Gannon said. “Broadly speaking, we”™re going to complete product development and then launch and market the software. We”™re contemplating that will occur within approximately four months.”
As a corporate attorney, Gannon has seen firsthand the amount of time and money firms devote to vetting mergers and acquisitions. He approached former Harvard Law School classmate Adam Nguyen about pioneering a solution a little over a year ago.
“This process consists of large teams of junior associates going through all of the target company”™s contracts, looking for potentially problematic provisions and summarizing their content,” Gannon said. “It”™s something that, especially in large acquisitions, takes a tremendous amount of time and costs a lot of money.”
With junior associates at New York City law firms billing $300 to $500 an hour, Gannon said companies have been pushing back against the rising cost of the legal due diligence process.
“You”™re seeing some clients refuse to pay for junior-level work, and as a result the firms have to write off time,” Gannon said. “Some low-level work is being outsourced to India. Some firms are using contract attorneys in areas like West Virginia as opposed to associates in New York.”
All of those factors made for “a very opportune time” to develop an alternative, he said.
Gannon and Nguyen, eBrevia”™s COO and CFO, looked into the natural language processing and machine learning programs at more than 200 universities, ultimately teaming with Columbia.
After sponsoring research at the Ivy League university from September 2011 to January 2012, eBrevia was accepted into Connecticut Innovations”™ first TechStart Accelerator Program this past spring. The company also worked with the University of Connecticut”™s Innovation Accelerator program to conduct market research before taking up residence at the Stamford Innovation Center.
Gannon credited the state”™s entrepreneurial environment for helping to accelerate eBrevia”™s growth.
Asked whether eBrevia could have found itself on the main stage at DEMO 2012 without the assistance of Connecticut Innovations, UConn, the Stamford Innovation Center and other startup-oriented programs in Connecticut, Gannon responded, “I don”™t know if we could have. One thing I can definitely say for sure is it would”™ve taken us a lot longer.”
The opportunity to present at this year”™s DEMO conference, which has introduced to the venture capital community E-Trade, TiVo, Salesforce.com, Adobe Acrobat, Netscape Navigator and Palm Computing, capped a 12-month period that Gannon called a “rocket ride.”
“It was great ”“ it was a jam-packed few days,” Gannon said of the conference, held Oct. 1-3. “We didn”™t get much sleep but it was a great experience.”
Gannon said several West Coast investors have already expressed in interest in working with eBrevia as it prepares to launch its platform in early 2013.
eBrevia will likely remain at the Stamford Innovation Center “for quite some time,” he said.
“I think ”¦ this is an absolutely ideal location ”“ Fairfield County, Stamford in particular,” Gannon said. “We”™re obviously just a short train ride away from the legal epicenter of the world in New York City, but at the same time we”™re able to take advantage of Connecticut”™s entrepreneurial ecosystem, lower costs in terms of rent, and a talented labor pool, so it”™s really ideal for what we”™re doing here.”
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