Legal AI tech startup Luminance raises $75M in Series C funding to automate and streamline legal processes

UK-based legal tech startup Luminance has secured $75 million in a Series C funding round, marking one of the biggest investments in a specialized legal AI firm across the UK and Europe. The round was led by Point72 Private Investments, with backing from Forestay Capital, RPS Ventures, and Schroders Capital. Existing supporters like March Capital, National Grid Partners, and law firm Slaughter and May also joined in.

With this round, Luminance has raised more than $115 million in just the past year and $165 million overall. The company was initially backed by the late Dr. Mike Lynch, the founder of Autonomy, who passed away in a tragic accident last year.

The fresh funding comes less than a year after the company’s last raise. Luminance plans to use the capital to refine its tools, ramp up marketing and sales efforts, and strengthen its presence in the U.S., where it sees growing demand for AI-driven legal solutions.

Legal tech has been a hot spot for funding lately. Just last week, Eudia raised $105 million; London-based Genie AI secured €16 million last year; U.S.-based Harvey landed $300 million in a Sequoia-led round; and Lawhive closed a $40 million round to support U.S. lawyers focused on everyday legal work.

Founded in 2015 by Cambridge academics Adam Guthrie and Dr. Graham Sills, Luminance uses generative AI to help law firms with contract drafting, review, and management. The company’s proprietary Legal Pre-trained Transformer (LPT) model is designed specifically for legal work, unlike the more commonly used GPT models. It’s trained on more than 150 million verified legal documents, many of which aren’t publicly available, giving Luminance a competitive edge.

“It’s a specialized AI built for lawyers,” said CEO Eleanor Lightbody, who stepped into the role after the Series A round. “Lawyers need to know the results are reliable, and our AI delivers on that trust.”

Luminance’s software can automatically review contracts, flag issues, and even negotiate agreements through its flagship product, Lumi Go. The company says over 700 organizations, including the Big Four consulting firms and major global companies like Koch Industries, Hitachi, Liberty Mutual, and Avianca Airlines, use its tools in more than 70 countries.

AI’s growing ability to parse dense legal language has fueled renewed interest in legal tech, with startups like Luminance betting that law firms will increasingly adopt specialized models to handle routine tasks more efficiently. The company hopes its AI will free up lawyers to focus on more strategic, high-level work while reducing the time and cost involved in traditional legal processes.