Crunchbase Daily: Legal tech rakes in venture capital

Legal tech rakes in venture capital

It seems that investors have become more interested in legal tech companies over the past year, with activity intensifying in the past couple weeks. The latest large funding recipients are Disco, a startup focused on e-discovery that raised $83 million, and Ironclad, a developer of contract management software that just secured $23 million.

US Series A sizes surge, led by coasts

The nationwide average Series A round grew by a massive 47 percent between 2017 and 2018, as a trend toward bigger U.S. early stage investments intensified, a Crunchbase News analysis finds. Meanwhile, the fundraising gap between U.S. coastal regions and more inland locales grew even more pronounced at earlier stages of the venture life cycle.

Clutter said to eye $200M+ round

Storage on-demand service Clutter is reportedly in the process of raising a fresh funding round of between $200 million and $250 million. The expected fundraising comes amid a robust period of investment for storage-focused startups.

Palantir lowers internal valuation

Palantir, the pseudo-stealthy big data unicorn, is moving its value around. The Silicon Valley company reportedly reduced the price of employee stock options, lowering the value of the company by that metric to $11 billion, a steep drop from prior valuation estimates.

Kleiner Perkins closes $600M early stage fund

Storied venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins announced that it has raised $600 million for its 18th fund. The 47-year-old firm said it plans to go “back to the future” in its investing strategy, with the philosophy that venture capital is a “non-scalable, boutique craft.”