Noah Waisberg’s next chapter in tech

In August, global legal tech firm Litera acquired Kira Systems, a machine-learning contract-review company co-founded by Noah Waisberg. Two months later, Waisberg is at it again, this time launching Zuva, an AI document intelligence company. His new company is looking well beyond the legal industry. This time Waisberg has bigger goals - to transform the business world with legal tech.

Originally from Toronto, Waisberg started his career as a young lawyer in New York City. He got the idea to start Kira Systems with co-founder Alexander Hudek in late 2010 as he saw the inefficiencies of document review firsthand. Their company focused on machine learning, building a product that could learn which clauses are useful based on user searches. The system made document review faster and more efficient.

"It took us two and a half years to get our tech to work from 2010, and then years more to get lawyers to adopt," says Waisberg. "When we started out, we were outside the mainstream. Ten years ago, corporate lawyers used little legal tech beyond email and Word. AI was not a thing."

Success came eventually. Kira Systems began picking up huge clients. The company serves 5 out of the 7 largest law firms in Canada, 18 of the top 25 M&A firms in the United States, 11 of the top 12 firms in the U.K. and more than half of the ALM 100 firms in the U.S.

"Lawyers get a bad rap for change," says Waisberg. "A lot of change happened over time and when they adapt, they adapt en masse. For example, lawyers were so resistant to email and now they fully adopted it. Electronic legal research and blacklining software (for example, track changes in documents) weren't overnight successes either."

As Kira Systems grew to become one of the largest legal tech companies in Canada, it caught the attention of Litera whose growth strategy depended on acquiring companies to scale quickly. This year Litera acquired a staggering eleven companies, among them Clocktimizer, which specializes in business intelligence data; DocsCorp, a document software provider; Foundation Software Corp, a business intelligence platform focused on consumer data in law firms; and Objective Manager, a U.K. based strategic planning and performance management software company.

Avaneesh Marwaha, Litera's CEO, said in a statement that the acquisition would "allow us to include advanced machine learning workflows into our Transaction Management platform. Overall, Kira enables us to provide total diligence for the transaction and deal management lifecycle."

Litera offered Waisberg a lucrative offer where he would have the capital needed to grow Zuva. New York-based venture capital firm Insight Partners gave $20 million in Series A funding as part of the deal.

"We felt that customers were in good hands and that our people would get greater opportunities in a big firm," says Waisberg. "Now I get to take our tech and roll it out to a bigger audience."

What makes Zuva so transformative is what Waisberg wants to accomplish. Moving past due diligence and document automation, he hopes his new venture can revolutionize the way businesses use AI. It's what he had planned from the beginning, but the world wasn't ready yet.

"I never thought change would happen overnight," says Waisberg. "I remember someone saying 2013 would be a huge year for legal tech; I never thought a single year would be enough to make that flip. It wasn't. If you expect all the change right away, you'll be disappointed."

The beauty of DocAi is in the simplicity of its tech -- an API-driven platform that allows users to pick and choose how it is integrates with existing systems. Users can extract key information from documents ranging from base salaries in employee agreements to identifying a tenant's right to sublet in real estate leases. Offering APIs is a longstanding strategy for software companies because it gives users the flexibility to customize without having to know coding language.

"There are many situations where you need data out of a contract," says Waisberg. "You can run businesses better if you know what's in your contracts, for example in your sales, marketing or finance departments. You have two choices: get a contract management system or use contract data in your existing sales, marketing and financial system. We provide other software companies the tools to incorporate our contract analysis tech into their systems."

Earlier this year, Waisberg and Hudek co-wrote "AI for Lawyers: How Artificial Intelligence is Adding Value, Amplifying Expertise, and Transforming Careers," which focuses on helping lawyers ease into using artificial intelligence. Waisberg's next adventure will be to convince businesses to adopt AI tech that's increasingly becoming popular in the legal market. He's up for the challenge. "It's fun to learn something new."