Brightflag
Channelling artificial intelligence into corporate legal spend analysis is a formula that is working a treat for tech company Brightflag. Despite hefty startup losses, the business is also a magnet for investors, most recently raising $28m (€23m).
Established in 2014 by former journalist Ian Nolan (39) and corporate lawyer Alex Kelly (35), the Brightflag niche is applying AI to corporate legal spend, previously a time-consuming process of poring over invoices. The platform gives a data-based perspective of not only the rates and subtotals billed within a legal invoice, but the specific tasks and activities performed as well.
Customers include Dropbox, Uber and Volvo, and the venture has offices in Dublin, New York and Sydney. The $28m fundraiser was announced in December, led by London investor One Peak, with existing shareholders Sands Capital Ventures and Frontline Ventures also participating.
Brightflag’s turnover in 2018 more than doubled year-on-year to c.€2m. The 2019 account filings doesn’t disclose revenue, though the company claims that annual recurring revenue doubled through the pandemic period. The business booked a loss of €4m in 2019, bringing accumulated losses to €6.5m. The balance sheet
shows total equity investment of €9.8m a year ago.
Also drawing investor interest with AI technology is SoapBox Labs, founded by Patricia Scanlon in 2013. The venture uses AI to develop speech-recognition technology for children, with applications in literacy, language learning, toys and robots. The company raised €6m in the first half of 2020 – from Elkstone Ventures (€1.8m); angel investor group Astia (€600,000); Grainbrook Limited, owned by Alan Ryan and Patrick O’Shea (€1m); and London investors John and Yvanna Chase (€1m).
Enterprise Ireland disclosed recently that taxpayers also funded the company with a €2.4m payment last April. Total capital now invested runs to over €12m. The speech recognition technology is being adopted for use by Amplify, a US edtech company serving five million stateside students.
Venture capital investment in Irish enterprises amounted to €790m in the January to September 2020 period, an annual increase of 39%. VC experts note that tech firms, from fintech to life sciences and softwareas-a-service, have been less impacted by Covid-19 than other sectors. Life sciences accounted for 35% of total VC funding, followed by 24% for software and 15% for fintech.