Recent trends have seen e-discovery companies expanding to the cloud, particularly through M&A activity. But this time, there a twist: a cloud-based e-discovery expanded its capabilities on-premise through acquiring one of the longest-running e-discovery tools on the market.

On March 26, cloud-based e-discovery automation company CloudNine announced it was acquiring the LexisNexis eDiscovery product suite. This includes the LAW PreDiscovery, Early Discovery Analyzer (EDA) and Concordance products. That final one is particularly notable—23.5 percent of respondents to the 2017 LTN Law Firm Tech Survey indicated using the tool for e-discovery.

In addition, CloudNine announced an investment from an affiliate of Peak Rock Capital, through whom it likely received the ability to make the deal. No monetary details to the acquisition have been announced at the time of this writing.

Brad Jenkins, CEO of CloudNine, specifically pointed to the LexisNexis suite's long-standing implementation as an on-premise software offering as a reason for the purchase in a release announcing the move. He explained, “The ability to offer a hybrid of both on-premise and off-premise software coupled with our automated software allows us to support customer needs regardless of their e-discovery task, security, and cost requirements. As a user of many of the purchased product line offerings for more than a decade, we understand their utility and potential. CloudNine plans to invest heavily in improving the support and development for these offerings and we look forward to integrating them into our product portfolio.”

In an FAQ on CloudNine's website, the company added that it plans to allow access to all of the tools in its portfolio to pre-existing users of the LexisNexis and the CloudNine software. For current LexisNexis e-discovery customers, it explained that it will not be looking to fold these products into the cloud—on the contrary, the company noted in the release that it “plans to invest significant resources in the support, development, enhancement, and availability of LAW Pre-Discovery, Concordance, and EDA offerings by offering them as solutions available as part of the CloudNine portfolio of offerings. These offerings will provide the on-premise solutions that will extend the data and legal discovery capability of CloudNine beyond the cloud.”

The company did say that over time, it plans enhance its “combined portfolio of on-premise and off-premise offerings” through “the technical integration and automation of emerging technologies including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies such as predictive coding in support of Technology Assisted Review (TAR).”

CloudNine added that current pricing schedules and contractual agreements will remain in effect, though over time, the company “plans to offer favorable terms including access to off-premise offerings for current on-premise customers.”

The company's release also did not explicitly state plans for current LexisNexis e-discovery employees, but the FAQ does note that company contacts will remain the same for now. “Current procedures for all business and support requests will remain in effect until customers are notified by their account managers of changes in procedures or contact,” CloudNine said. “Initial plans are for the on-premise team to operate just as they have during their tenure with the LexisNexis e-discovery organization. Over time customers can expect a controlled migration of systems and contacts into a consolidated business and support organization. However, all changes will be proactively communicated to customers to ensure business and executional continuity.”

Legaltech News has reached out to CloudNine for comment and will update as more is known.