Advocat Technologies,a Bellevue, Washington-based startup that uses artificial intelligence to guide research and writing for corporate legal departments, earned top honors and $200,000 in funding at the San Diego Angel Conference.
The University of San Diego School of Business program activates accredited angel investors and engages promising early-stage companies.
Advocat is a provider of legal technology that reduces the workload of in-house counsel. Its system allows a non-lawyer business user to talk to Advocat’s system, which uses AI to understand what the user needs. The AI selects the correct in-house legal template and asks the user a series of questions, drafts a document and sends the draft to an in-house lawyer for approval. The benefit is that it saves a significant amount of time in intake and drafting.
Advocat CEO Pradnya Desh is a lawyer, former law firm partner and former U.S. diplomat who says her company is transforming business law by enabling each in-house lawyer on Fortune 1,000 legal teams to do the work of more than seven lawyers.
“This funding allows us to further develop our technology and increase marketing as we advance our mission to leverage AI to enable lawyers to do more in less time,” Desh said in a press release. “We are especially grateful for the knowledge, tools and connections we have built through SDAC, truly invaluable.”
Prior to winning in San Diego, Advocat was bootstrapped by founders including Desh, Haresh Ved and Chetan Desh, and has raised an additional $800,000.
Advocat previously participated in the Microsoft-supported SaaS Launch Lab for women-led enterprise software companies. And it was one of 26 startups in last summer’s Washington Technology Industry Association Founders Cohort Program.
Clearbrief,another Seattle legal writing startup that is using AI to change the industry, recently raised $1.2 million.
