The latest in what has been an active e-discovery M&A market, Nuix announced today that it has acquired the Ringtail e-discovery software business from FTI Consulting for $55 million. The acquisition allows Nuix to offer what it deems an “end-to-end” e-discovery platform.

Ringtail is primarily known within e-discovery circles for its automation and analytics capabilities. The software boasts “visual” early case assessment and predictive coding, allowing for greater data-based insight into e-discovery review. Nuix plans to combine Ringtail with its own processing platform, which it says covers “more than 1,000 file types and data formats,” for a more comprehensive platform.

Customers will be able to obtain Ringtail from Nuix's global partner network or from Nuix as on-premises software or a hosted service. As Nuix had already forged a long-standing integration partnership with Ringtail, Nuix said current customers “can immediately take advantage” of Nuix processing through Ringtail.

Nuix has not announced any further changes for customers that will occur as part of the deal, nor any immediate changes for Ringtail's staff. Legaltech News has reached out to Nuix for comment and will update as we learn more.

Rod Vawdrey, group CEO of Nuix, said in a statement announcing the acquisition, “We know the practice of e-discovery is hard and our customers and partners have been asking consistently for a better end-to-end solution. Integrating the power of Ringtail into the Nuix platform is truly transformational for the legal, risk, and compliance industries and equips our extensive partner and distribution network to raise the bar for excellence and pace of innovation in e-discovery.”

Sophie Ross, global CEO of the Technology segment at FTI Consulting, added in the press release, “We believe Nuix's development expertise and commitment to Ringtail will allow Ringtail to flourish and grow, and we are pleased that our consultants will continue to offer and use Ringtail along with other tools to serve our global clientele.” FTI Consulting told Legaltech News that it had no further comment beyond the statement.

The Nuix acquisition of Ringtail comes just months after the e-discovery business embarked on a new strategy to acquire business separate from what was provided by its parent company FTI Consulting.

Bill Adams, senior managing director at FTI Consulting who headed the Ringtail business, told Legaltech News that for Ringtail “to do well, it needed to take a different approach to the market. … It needed to not just rely on engagements that FTI was hired to do.”

As part of that strategy, in August 2018, Ringtail entered into its first business engagement separate from FTI—a partnership with Chile-based Seal Legal Forensics, a managed legal services and e-discovery company. Seal became the first company authorized to license Ringtail directly to its clients.

E-discovery has seen numerous M&A moves within the past couple of years, especially as the market has grown to more than $10 billion in size. So far, 2018 has seen CloudNine's acquisition of LexisNexis' e-discovery suite, Catalyst's acquisition of TotalDiscovery, and Epiq's acquisition of Garden City Group, among others.

Like Nuix's purchase of Ringtail, many of those M&A moves, as well as others in the broader legal tech market, have been driven largely by the clients' demand for more end-to-end services.