Harvey on Thursday confirmed it closed a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz that values the legal AI startup at $8 billion, after reports of the funding leaked in October. The startup raised $160 million in this round.
Moreover, this latest capital infusion came just months after it raised $300 million in a Series E round at a $5 billion valuation in June. And earlier this year, it raised a Sequoia-led $300 million Series D at a $3 billion valuation in February. Harvey’s investors include EQT, WndrCo, Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, Sarah Guo’s Conviction, and Elad Gil.
In September, just before raising this latest mega round, Harvey released some details about its business. Although it declined to share absolute numbers and instead offered percentages of growth and retention, it later stated that it surpassed $100 million in annual recurring revenue back in August. It also said it counts 50 of the top AmLaw 100 firms as customers, and it serves corporate legal teams as well.
Since the legal industry revolves entirely around words, legal functions naturally emerge as a strong use case for LLMs: searching, summarizing, and drafting, all based on domain-specific training. However, Harvey also exemplifies how VCs are “kingmaking” these days. They pour vast sums of money into a startup to signal its strength, which in turn encourages large enterprise customers, like law firms, to sign significant contracts in a self-fulfilling cycle.
Because Harvey was founded in 2022, it may be far enough ahead of competitors—both in customer acquisition and reinforced training from working with numerous law firms—to stand as the leader in this market. At least, one of its long-time VCs, Elad Gil, holds that view.
Gil said that Harvey is one of the AI market leaders experiencing genuine growth because its technology and market position are “just working.”
Furthermore, Harvey’s co-founder and CEO Winston Weinberg recently shared an incredible story of how it first gained the attention of Silicon Valley’s powerhouse VCs. It began with a proof of concept about landlord-tenant law and a cold email to Sam Altman. Harvey later became one of OpenAI Startup Fund’s first investments, and it has remained a VC favorite ever since.
