GC AI Raises $60 Million Series B Led by Scale Venture

GC AI has raised a $60 million Series B round co-led by Scale Venture Partners and Northzone, valuing the company at $555 million. This brings the startup’s total funding to nearly $72 million across three rounds.

The round included participation from Sound Ventures, Aglaé Ventures, SilverCircle Partners, News Corp, and The Council. Additionally, about 45 general counsels invested through a special-purpose vehicle.

Cecilia Ziniti founded GC AI after leaving her role as general counsel at Replit on Nov. 1, 2023. She incorporated the company in San Mateo, California, about a week later.

Ziniti built GC AI to address gaps she observed when using early versions of GPT for legal work during her time at Replit. She noted that general-purpose AI lacked precision, proper sourcing, and tone needed for professional legal tasks.

Her co-founder, Bardia Pourvakil, is an engineer she worked with at Replit who previously attended Stanford Law School before choosing engineering. Together, they combined her legal expertise with his technical background to build the product.

GC AI initially launched an AI assistant for corporate legal departments and later expanded to include contract analysis and tools for handling legal team requests. The company serves roughly 2,100 companies, up from about 900 a year earlier.

Its customers include large enterprises and startups with single in-house lawyers, such as Lockheed Martin, Time, Eventbrite, Vercel, and Gusto. Nearly 30% of its seats are used by non-legal employees in HR and finance.

Revenue comes from per-seat subscriptions, a contract-analysis tool priced by document volume, and a platform for managing legal requests. Ziniti said the company does not train its models on customer data and pursued SOC 2 compliance early.

About one-third of GC AI’s 125 employees are lawyers. Ziniti said trust is the top barrier to adoption in corporate legal teams, a challenge she believes her legal background helps overcome.

GC AI competes with startups like Harvey and Legora but focuses on in-house legal teams, whereas those companies initially targeted law firms. Its contract intelligence tool analyzes internal documents, unlike law firm tools that must handle diverse client materials.

Ziniti had prior venture exposure as an angel investor and general counsel at venture-backed startups, which helped her build relationships before raising capital. Her first commitment came from Amber Illig of The Council, whom she knew from Cruise.

She described the fundraising process as easier after securing the initial commitment. The company’s growth includes a 400% year-over-year increase, according to Ziniti.