Since beginning to track the number of publicly highlighted merger, acquisition, and investment (M&A+I) events in the eDiscovery ecosystem, ComplexDiscovery has noted at least 453 M&A+I events between November 2001 and December 2020. In considering M&A+I events in 2020, the following findings, drivers, data points, and tracking charts may be useful for understanding the activity patterns of these business events between January 1, 2020, and December 31, 2020.
Relativity Acquires VerQu
According to Relativity CEO Mike Gamson, “It’s imperative that the legal and compliance industries stay ahead of and evolve with the changing nature of work in organizations globally. Enterprise communications will continue to shift rapidly and scale from traditional channels like email toward chat and collaboration platforms. That’s why Relativity is committed to investing in technology that connects directly to native cloud data sources for surveillance and e-discovery workflows, evolving the data paradigm from documents to include conversations.”
eDiscovery Mergers, Acquisitions, and Investments in Q4 2020
From Nuix and DISCO to Exterro and AccessData, the following findings, data points, and tracking charts highlight information that may be useful for understanding M&A+I activity patterns in the eDiscovery ecosystem from October 1, 2020, through December 31, 2020. During 4Q20 there were at least eight M&A+I events, a pulse rate that exceeded the pre-COVID investment pulse rate of seven events during the same time frame in 2019.
DISCO Closes Funding Round of $100 Million
According to DISCO CEO Kiwi Camara, “Legaltech is booming now, and the industry’s real growth has only just begun. Over the next five to 10 years, legaltech will emerge as the next high-growth category of enterprise software. We are delighted to see investors acknowledge DISCO’s position as the category creator and category leader for legaltech. Legal departments and law firms are embracing the power of artificial intelligence to automate away the parts of the practice of law that don’t require human legal judgment, freeing great lawyers to do the work that only they can do.”
An Abridged Look at the Business of eDiscovery: Mergers, Acquisitions, and Investments
The presented listing highlights key industry business moves by sharing the announcement date, acquired company, acquiring or investing company, and acquisition amount (if known) of significant eDiscovery-related mergers, acquisitions, and investments.
An IPO Down Under? Australian Securities Exchange Welcomes Nuix Limited
According to Nuix, it is a leading provider of investigative analytics and intelligence software with a vision of “finding truth in a digital world”. Nuix’s stated mission is to create innovative software that empowers organizations to simply and quickly find the truth from any data in a digital world. Having been used globally in high-profile investigations including the highly-publicized Panama Papers headline event, Nuix now is finding its own truth as a publicly-traded company on the Australian Securities Exchange.
TCDI Acquires Cicayda
According to TCDI Founder and CEO Bill Johnson, “For 30 years, we’ve steadily built upon our innovative, client-driven technology, and this move supports our strategy to meet our clients’ growing needs. Both companies share very similar cultures and philosophies which ensures our clients will continue to get the same high-quality service they expect.”
Epiq Acquires Hyperion Global Partners
According to Ziad Mantoura, SVP and General Manager for Epiq’s legal transformation services business, “The recent pace of legal industry change has acutely accelerated the need for law departments and firms to be run like a business, including the need to embrace digital transformation. Hyperion has a team of expert consultants and a heritage of guiding clients to make intelligent, fact-based decisions to transform their businesses. Joining forces with this team and its impressive market intelligence capabilities adds considerable depth to the solutions we offer our clients as we help guide their digital transformation.”
Smarsh Acquires Digital Reasoning
According to the media release, Tim Estes, Founder and CEO of Digital Reasoning, said, “In this new world of remote work, a company’s digital communications infrastructure is now the most essential one for it to function and thrive. Smarsh and Digital Reasoning provide the only validated and complete solution for companies to understand what is being said in any digital channel and in any language. This enables them to quickly identify things like fraud, racism, discrimination, sexual harassment, and other misconduct that can create substantial compliance risk.”
Reynen Court Secures Additional Funding
According to the media release, Reynen Court has secured $4.5 million of further funding to accelerate growth. Founded in 2018 with wide support from a consortium of nineteen leading global law firms, Reynen Court now has nearly two hundred third-party application vendors are actively engaged, with more than a hundred already under contract and currently present or working towards participation in the Reynen Court solution store.