Kira Systems Secures $50 Million Series A Funding Round

A historic year for venture investments into the Canadian tech scene is not slowing down as the summer wraps up.

Kira Systems has announced a $50 million USD Series A funding round from Insight Venture Partners. This is the first major outside investment for Kira, as they had previously bootstrapped their way to success.

The Toronto-based company is an AI-focused contract analysis firm that uses machine learning to pour over documents and extract the most relevant information. This process has helped save anywhere from 20 to 90 per cent of the typical time spent on document review, mostly for clients in the legal world. Many of Kira’s customers are leading law firms and large corporations. Kira is part of a growing legaltech community in Canada that is beginning to see real success in the sector.

“There is vast opportunity to improve contract review, enabling previously impossible levels of insight into the details of companies’ agreements,” said Noah Waisberg, co-founder and CEO of Kira Systems. “We’re excited to raise a round that allows us to more swiftly execute on our long-term vision. We will continue to improve our software and impress our growing customer base. Insight, as a thought leader in scaling software companies, is a fantastic partner for us in this journey.”

Kira has over 500 built-in machine learning models that are trained by veteran lawyers to recognize concepts and extract them form documents. Their main machine learning tool, Quick Study, can even support enhancement form non-technical folks through an easy-to-use enhancement tool. Some of the biggest use cases for Quick Study include M&A due diligence, contract management database population, internal audits, lease abstraction.

As part of the new financing round, Insight Venture’s managing director Peter Sobiloff will join Kira’s board.

“Kira Systems’ performance as a bootstrapped business has been impressive, and we’re eager to partner with them to more aggressively pursue growth,” said Sobiloff. “We don’t see many pure-play AI businesses with their traction, and this success has come from the fact that Kira is fundamentally changing how contracts are reviewed. This represents an opportunity to make a meaningful impact across their core market segments.”

Jonathan Rosenbaum, a senior associate at Insight, will act as a board observer. Over the past year, Kira has doubled their team to more than 100 employees and has shared plans to expand beyond Toronto. Kira was also recently named as one of Canada’s top five startups, according to LinkedIn.