This startup wants to transform the legal profession: Wordsmith AI just raised $25 million to drive agentic AI adoption for general counsels and fuel the rise of ‘legal engineers’

Wordsmith AI, a Scottish startup specializing in AI agents for legal professionals, has raised $25 million in a funding round led by Index Ventures.

The investment, which builds on a $5 million seed funding round last year, brings the Edinburgh-based startup’s valuation to $100 million and will be used to scale out its AI infrastructure and drive global expansion.

Founded in 2024 by Ross McNairn, a lawyer turned engineer, the company aims to transform the profession by embedding AI agents within legal teams to support general counsels (GCs).

McNairn describes its flagship Legal Enablement Platform as “air traffic control for GCs and in-house teams”, and allows users to automate tasks and streamline manual processes.

“For the first time, AI infrastructure can be embedded across companies, with fleets of agents that you can train to support every corporate function - cutting deal cycles, answering queries, and processing complex workflows,” McNairn said in a statement following the investment round.

Since launching, Wordsmith AI has cultivated a strong customer base which includes major firms such as Trustpilot, Deliveroo, Multiverse, Docplanner, and Remote.com.

The company has recorded strong revenue growth in both the UK and US markets thus far and plans to open offices in London and New York later this year.

"We are helping GCs embed their legal intelligence across the business,” McNairn said. “Gone are the days of legal being seen as a blocker, it is now a revenue accelerator."

Wordsmith AI targets agentic AI gains for legal teams

Agentic AI has quickly emerged as the latest industry trend in recent months, with a host of major big tech providers launching their own AI agent services.

Notably, there are a number of key emerging use cases for this latest iteration of the technology, such as customer service and software development. As ITPro previously reported, Salesforce has even touted the use of AI agents for frontline trade workers in recent weeks.

The legal profession is also an area ripe for automation, with the technology expected to play a crucial role in transforming the sector and helping reduce manual toil for workers.

Research from Gartner, for example, predicts the global legal technology market will reach $50 billion in value by 2027 as a result of generative AI adoption.

The consultancy believes the use of AI tools will help streamline processes such as spend management, e-billing, and legal document management activities.

With this influx of AI agents, the Edinburgh startup says the industry will also witness the emergence of an entirely new role within legal departments, dubbed the ‘legal engineer’.

The rise of this new, AI-focused role will require new skillsets, according to Wordsmith, meaning investment in training and deployment support will be crucial in delivering success.

“We’re witnessing the birth of an entirely new role in legal: the legal engineer,” McNairn said. “These are the people training, deploying, and managing fleets of AI agents. We’re helping to re-skill an entire generation to do it."

Wordsmith has invested significantly in training and upskilling for legal professionals so far, and this latest funding round will help accelerate activities in this regard.

“AI is revolutionizing the legal profession, and Wordsmith is leading that charge,” said Hannah Seal, partner at Index Ventures.”

“They’re not just building a copilot, they’re creating the foundational infrastructure for how entire organizations interact with legal. This is about reshaping enterprise operations, not just supporting legal teams.”

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