SpotDraft raises $1.5 million from Binny Bansal-backed 021 Capital

Legal tech startup SpotDraft has raised $1.5 million (around Rs 11 crore) in pre-Series A funding from 021 Capital. VC fund 021 Capital, led by Sailesh Tulsan, is backed by Binny Bansal, Co-founder of Walmart-acquired Flipkart. Girish Mathrubootham, Co-founder of Freshworks; Karanpal Singh, Founder of Hunch Ventures; Indus Khaitan, Chief of Growth of Chargebee; Peeyush Ranjan, VP Engineering of Google, and Singapore Angel Network also participated in the round.

The Artifical Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)-based startup will ue the funds to expand its global footprint , targeting both large-scale, medium-scale, and small-scale enterprises.

"The dynamic algorithmic model of SpotDraft is like a superpower tool to evaluate legal documents and make decisions at 10x the speed and accuracy. Legal documents are still stuck in the 1980s. They have re-imagined changing the way contracts will be analysed and reviewed in future. Excited to be long-term partners with the SpotDraft team," said Sailesh Tulsan, of 021 Capital, in a press release.

Gurugram-based SpotDraft was founded by former Wall Street lawyer Shashank Bijapur and Madhav Bhagat, a former Google employee, in 2017, after they met in New York and bonded over contracts.

The contract management and creation system provides users with lawyer-vetted templates that can be filled out in less than a minute. Once a contact is created, the platform automatically creates invoices and payment reminders, and tracks payments as they become due. SpotDraft comes with pre-built analysis tools for GDPR, NDA analysis to Capital Markets and Credit Agreements. A chunk of SpotDraft's business today comes from European firms, who use its tools to analyse compliance with GDPR.

"We are excited about this new phase of growth for SpotDraft. We want companies to move out of track changes into the 21st century. Our platform can help companies create, analyse, and manage legal contracts, all with zero human intervention," said Shashank Bijapur, Co-founder and CEO of SpotDraft.

In the previous round, SpotDraft raised seed funding of Rs 3.5 crore from Hunch Ventures. SpotDraft is also backed by Japan's Spiral Ventres, 500 Startups, and Satyen Kothari, Founder of Cube.

"SpotDraft focuses on the boring category of legal contract management and uses AI to quickly navigate contracts and deliver insights to accelerate the process of contract negotiation and signing. I was thoroughly impressed by the product and the high calibre of the founders and decided to invest," Girish Mathrubootham said.

Venture capital fund 021 was founded by Binny and his financial advisor, Sailesh, in 2017. They have already made around six investments, including biotech startup Pandorum Technologies and Ycook, which makes ready-to-cook food.

021 Capital is keen to invest in areas such as AI, biotech, agricultural technology, supply chain and logistics, and consumer internet.