Self-service e-discovery company Logikcull this week announced the closure of a $25 million Series B funding round led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA). OpenView Venture Partners and Storm Ventures, both of whom had previously invested funding to Logikcull, also participated in the funding round.

Logikcull CEO and founder Andy Wilson said the fundraising opportunity was sort of a happy coincidence for the company. While most companies court venture capitalists for investments, Wilson said, “We didn't do any of that. We were heads down building a business, having a good time. We didn't need any money to continue this really fast growth.”

Wilson said that NEA expressed interest in investing in Logikcull, and the company decided to take them up on it. “We can use that money to invest more into the future for our customers,” Wilson said. Seventeen days and $25 million dollars later, the company closed its Series B round.

The size of Logikcull's funding round is yet another indicator that 2018 may be a bounce-back year for the legal technology venture capital economy. While investments into legal technology as a whole have notably declined over the last two years, 2018 has already seen a few notable mergers and acquisitions, as well as a $20 million equity financing investment into fellow e-discovery company DISCO.

Despite pronouncements of outside consolidation and maturation in the e-discovery market over the last decade, Logikcull has managed to weather the increasingly competitive market and prove itself to be a major player. The company began 13 years ago as a discovery service group and launched its online e-discovery tool Logikcull in 2009.

Wilson attributes much of Logikcull's success to its self-service e-discovery software, which keeps its e-discovery tools squarely in the hands of users and private to the vendor. “Our customers benefit from that immense privacy,” Wilson said.

That privacy even extends to the company's customer base. When I asked Wilson what a standard Logikcull user looks like, he said, “We don't know any of that. We have no idea. All we see is data being uploaded, number of users, that type of thing. We designed it in a way so that people could use it however the hell they want.” 

Wilson expects that the funding will help Logikcull increase the size and scope of the company. He expects Logikcull's total staff to double over the next year and its engineering staff to triple in the future. “We're just growing like a weed. We're adding almost 100 new customers a month. They're mainly coming to us,” he said.

“The legal space in general doesn't get a lot of venture capital investment because historically, it's been a really bad place to put your money,” Wilson added. “That's changing. I think that's partly due to the digital revolution.”