Blackbird backs expat Kiwi founder’s legal tech startup in $25.5 million Series A

A former New Zealander worked in Australia as a lawyer, before giving it up to found an AI-powered legal tech startup, has raised a $25.5 million (US$16m) Series A\

Min-Kyu Jung was a corporate lawyer sick of the time-consuming and manual process required for contract reviews. So he left the law, taught himself to code, and began building what would become Ivo to solve the problem.

Ivo is an AI-powered contract review platform already being used by more than 150 corporate legal teams globally to negotiate agreements.

Jung, Ivo’s CEO, is now based in San Francisco, California, having rebranded his startup from Latch to Ivo last year.

The Series A was led by West Coast VC Costanoa Ventures and other US firms and existing investors Fika Ventures, Uncork Capital and NFDG (Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross – cofounder of Safe Superintelligence). Blackbird and Kiwi funds GD1 and Phase One Ventures also chipped in.

Ivo previously raised US$4.8 million (A$7.7m) in a Seed round led by Fika and Uncork in April 2024.

Ivo’s customers base is just law firms, with Canva, Fonterra,  Weightwatchers, Eventbrite, and several Fortune 500 companies among its users for contracts.

Jung said contract negotiation remains the most challenging bottleneck in the contract lifecycle, with legal teams spending hours on manual redlining and revisions. Ivo’s AI assistant can cut the review time by 75%.

“The legal profession is in the early stages of an AI-driven transformation,” he said.

“We’re building Ivo to ensure this change enhances rather than diminishes the crucial role of legal judgment. Our vision is to give every legal team the power to handle enterprise-scale contract volumes while maintaining the highest standards of accuracy and control.”

The startup has also launched Ivo Search Agent, which conducts contract search and analysis without the need for manual metadata tagging. That means legal teams can search and generate reports across their entire contract portfolio no matter where documents are stored.

Costanoa Ventures partner Amy Cheetham said the startup is transforming contract review.

“By leveraging AI to manage the meticulous, painstaking work of contract review, Ivo gives legal teams tools designed by lawyers to work faster with greater accuracy,” she said.

“In a world where legal organisations are constantly under pressure to meet business demands and improve efficiency, the launch of Ivo’s new search tool will allow legal teams to search and generate reports across their entire contract portfolio, significantly reducing their workload and increasing efficiency.”