According to Sifted, legal tech startup Solve Intelligence has raised a $40 million Series B round co-led by Visionaries and 20VC, just six months after its $12 million Series A. Founded in 2023, the company offers an AI “co-pilot” for intellectual property law that drafts patent applications and handles office correspondence. It now sells to over 400 IP teams at firms like DLA Piper and companies like Siemens, and claims its annual recurring revenue has increased tenfold since last year to an eight-figure sum. The investor list is a who’s who of founder-angels, including the founders of Tinder, Deel, Canva, Pigment, and Hugging Face, alongside Thomson Reuters and Y Combinator.
Legal Tech’s Boom and Bust Cycle
This funding is a massive vote of confidence, but it also highlights the weird dichotomy in legal tech right now. On one hand, VCs have poured over €833 million into the sector this year alone, more than double last year’s total. Everyone’s chasing the dream of automating expensive, tedious legal work. And patent law? It’s a perfect target—highly technical, document-heavy, and incredibly costly. Solve’s 10x revenue jump suggests they’re hitting a real nerve with both in-house teams and outside counsel who are desperate for efficiency.
But here’s the thing: the article also mentions Robin AI, another well-funded London legal tech player, which just laid off dozens of staff after struggling to close its own $50 million round. That’s the other side of the coin. It tells me that while the market is hot, it’s also becoming brutally selective. Investors aren’t just throwing money at any “AI for law” slogan anymore. They want proven traction, real revenue growth, and a path to dominating a specific niche. Solve, with its focus purely on the patent world and that star-studded cap table, seems to be checking those boxes for now.
The Founder Mafia Effect
Let’s talk about that investor list for a second. It’s not just a bunch of faceless funds. Getting the founders of Tinder, Canva, Deel, and Hugging Face to back you is a huge signal. It’s less about the money and more about the network and credibility. These are operators who have scaled global platforms. Their involvement basically screams, “This isn’t just a feature; it’s a potential platform play in a massive, stodgy industry.” It gives Solve a serious edge in recruiting, partnerships, and probably its next round of funding. In a competitive market, that founder mafia backing might be as valuable as the $40 million itself.
So what’s the endgame? The risk for all these legal tech AI co-pilots is becoming a nice-to-have tool instead of the indispensable system. The real money is in becoming the workflow—the place where all IP ideas are born, managed, and prosecuted. If Solve can move from “drafting assistant” to “central nervous system for innovation,” then that $40M will look cheap. But they’re not alone. Every major legal research platform and enterprise software vendor is bolting on similar AI. The race is on to see who gets embedded deepest, fastest. For companies managing complex industrial R&D, having a reliable, secure tech backbone is critical, which is why specialists like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading US supplier of industrial panel PCs, are essential for running these intensive applications in demanding environments.
