Litera Agrees to Acquire Leading Machine Learning Contract Analysis Company, Kira Systems

• Litera will acquire Kira Systems and its industry-leading machine learning contract analysis technologies to form a new cornerstone for its Transaction Management platform as it looks to transform the due diligence process;
• The acquisition marks the 12th legal tech acquisition made by Litera;
• As part of the transaction, Kira Systems’ majority investor, Insight Partners, will become a minority investor in Litera; and
• Hg, a global software and services investor, remains a majority investor in the business; and
• As part of the transaction, Kira Systems will spin off a new company named Zuva, which will be commercializing the company’s AI technology in new products for the corporate market.

Litera, a global leader in legal technology solutions with more than 15,000 customers, announced that it has agreed to acquire Kira Systems (“Kira”), the industry leader in machine learning contract review and analysis software.

Founded in 2011 and based in Toronto, Canada, Kira is a leader in contract analysis software for law firms and has transformed the contract review process, helping lawyers to analyze more documents with greater efficiency and accuracy. Kira’s patented, award-winning machine learning technology, quickly extracts concepts and data points and comes with over 1200 built-in provision models.

As part of the acquisition, Insight Partners, an investor in Kira Systems since August 2018, will further its investment in Kira, becoming a minority investor in Litera. Hg, a global software and services investor will remain the majority investor in Litera. Hg first invested in Litera in 2019. Since then, Litera has seen significant organic growth and completed a number of acquisitions, more than trebling the size of the business.

Kira has transformed the way law firms complete diligence. On a typical M&A deal, lawyers are only reviewing a small set of contracts because it traditionally has not been economically feasible to do more. This selective process inherently increases risk in the deal, and important information can be overlooked. With Kira, lawyers can review more contracts efficiently and accurately to mitigate risks and provide more significant insights into transactions. Ultimately, Kira’s technology will further Litera’s mission to support law firms to improve client retention, increase margins, and enhance end-user happiness.

Avaneesh Marwaha, Litera CEO, said in a statement that the acquisition would “allow us to include advanced machine learning workflows into our Transaction Management platform. Providing lawyers with significantly expanded workflows to manage more aspects of the deal management process of higher quality. We are also incredibly impressed by the Kira team and leadership, whose expertise will be a strong addition to the Litera family. Overall, Kira enables us to provide total diligence for the transaction and deal management lifecycle.”

“Litera is the perfect partner for Kira. They have a deep understanding of the legal market globally and share our vision that technology can transform the contract review process. Litera has achieved ubiquity in the legal market for its Drafting products. We believe this acquisition will ensure Kira achieves ubiquity in the due diligence review process, as well as provide a welcome home for our customers and employees.” said Noah Waisberg, CEO and Co-Founder. As part of the transaction, Noah will continue as a strategic advisor to Litera.

Avaneesh Marwaha will speak further about the acquisition in his CEO Executive Briefing on August 19th, 10 a.m. CT, and ILTACON 2021, August 22-26 in Las Vegas.

As part of the overall transaction, Kira Systems is spinning off a new company, Zuva, which will continue to advance the state of the art of machine learning for business documents and will be focused on delivering tools that enable the world’s businesses to know what’s in their contracts. Noah Waisberg will lead the new company as CEO, Kira Co-Founder and CTO Dr. Alexander Hudek will be a strategic advisor and board director.