Relativity CEO Mike Gamson thinks the hallmark of a mature and robust tech business ecosystem is when companies within the ecosystem are big enough to support the growth of new startups.
Founded in 2001, the Chicago legal tech company recently acquired legal software startup Heretik in a deal that he said demonstrates how much Chicago's tech startup ecosystem has grown. This comes after Relativity acquired New York-based artificial intelligence startup Text IQ and New Jersey-based VerQu last year as it continues to find new ways to help law firms manage large volumes of data to quickly identify key issues during litigation, internal investigations and compliance operations.
"Relativity has been a leader and a core member of Chicago's startup ecosystem for 20 years, and to be able to take an incredible group of founders ... and ultimately see them to a successful exit in this way, is something that I think the whole tech community can celebrate," Gamson told the Chicago Business Journal.
Both homegrown Chicago startups are deeply rooted in the local tech scene, as Heretik’s CEO and co-founder Charlie Connor started at Relativity before launching Heretik. In fact, Heretik was created for Relativity customers by former Relativity employees, and half of Heretik's employees are former Relativity team members. Relativity was also one of Heretik’s first backers when the company raised $2.4 million in a seed funding round in 2017.
"We started in [Chicago startup hub and incubator] 1871 and we saw our whole network and community here as an advantage of being in Chicago," Connor told the Chicago Business Journal.
Founded in 2016, Heretik has built an algorithm-based software that helps law firms to review contracts more efficiently.
For Connor, this move is all about scale for Heretik. Relativity has more than 300,000 users in approximately 40 countries serving thousands of organizations globally primarily in legal, financial services and government sectors.
"We've got a really strong product, but to be able to scale our business to the global level it needs to get at, with the large companies that are using Relativity today, that gives us a big opportunity to scale and build a deeper integration," he said.
For Relativity, the move is more about improving Relativity's contract review platform, which will be known as Relativity Contracts, and will enable users to transform existing contracts into into immediate insight in the form of data.
Gamson said Heretik's review capabilities are “above and beyond” that which others can get in the market for contract review and provides a modern and fast interface that allows for immediate action on existing contract data.
“Heretik is going to enable Relativity to really offer a deeply integrated and purpose-built contract review and intelligence capability that our customers care so much about,” he said.
Relativity Contracts will be integrated into RelativityOne, the firm’s cloud platform, and will be available as an add-on in mid-2023.
As a privately held company, Relativity did not disclose any financial information on the acquisition.
