Just
four
months
ago
in
an
article
here,
I
caught
up
with
founder
and
CEO
Ryan
Alshak
for
an
update
on
Laurel,
the
company
that
provides
automated
time
capture
and
analytics
for
law
firms
and
other
professional
services
firms.
I
first
met
Alshak
in
2017,
when
his
then
startup
won
the
very
first
Startup
Alley,
the
startup
pitch
competition
I
coordinate
at
ABA
Techshow,
and
in
my
recent
post,
I
wrote
that
Laurel
“offers
startups
a
vision
of
what
is
possible.”
That
proved
more
prescient
than
I
could
have
known,
as
Laurel
today announced
that
it
has
raised
$100
million
in
Series
C
funding
in
a
round
led
by
the
technology
venture
capital
firm
IVP,
with
participation
from
GV
(Google
Ventures).
Laurel
said
it
will
use
this
investment
to
scale
its
AI
timekeeping
platform
and
accelerate
its
development
to
solve
what
it
calls
the
“time
intelligence
challenge”
—
the
inability
of
knowledge-based
businesses
to
accurately
map
time
to
business
outcomes.
Related: Time
By
Ping
Raises
$36.5M
Series
B;
Exclusive
LawNext
Interview
with
CEO
Ryan
Alshak.
In
addition
to
IVP
and
GV,
new
investors
in
the
round
—
which
consists
of
primary
and
secondary
funding
—
also
include
01.a,
created
by
the
former
CEO
and
COO
of
Twitter
and
CRO
of
Facebook;
DST
Global;
Kevin
Weil,
CPO
at
OpenAI;
Alexis
Ohanian;
Vladimir
Fedorov,
CTO
at
GitHub;
Arash
Ferdowsi,
co-founder
of
Dropbox;
and
Hans
Tung.
Returning
as
investors
in
this
round
were
ACME,
Anthos,
Gokul
Rajaram,
AIX
Ventures,
and
Marc
Benioff’s
TIME
Ventures.
As
I
wrote
in
my
February
post,
the
company
—
originally
called
Time
By
Ping
—
has
come
a
long
way
since
its
2016
founding.
The
first
to
use
AI
to
automate
time
capture
for
lawyers,
it
has
expanded
beyond
legal
into
the
accounting
and
consulting
sectors.
Named
700th on
the
Inc.
5000
list of
the
fastest-growing
companies
in
the
U.S.
last
year,
the
company
reports
300%
year-over-year
growth,
with
its
accounting
business
now
representing
one-half
of
its
operations.
Its
customers
include
more
than
100
of
the
top
legal,
accounting,
and
consulting
firms
across
the
U.S.,
U.K.,
E.U.,
Australia
and
Canada.
Read
more
about
Laurel
in
the
LawNext
Legal
Technology
Directory.
Ajay
Vashee,
general
partner
at
IVP,
said
that
Laurel
has
identified
one
of
the
largest
efficiency
gaps
in
the
modern
economy
and
its
market
opportunity
is
massive.
“Professional
services
represent
trillions
in
global
economic
activity,
yet
these
firms
operate
without
basic
visibility
into
their
core
resource
–
time,”
Vashee
said.
“By
solving
the
time
intelligence
challenge,
Laurel
creates
a
platform
for
broader
AI
transformation.
Founder
Alshak,
in
a
statement
announcing
the
funding,
said
that
legal
and
accounting
firms
have
failed
to
map
the
input
of
time
to
the
value
of
the
outcomes
produced,
with
the
result
that
“the
supply
chain
of
knowledge
work
…
has
never
been
surfaced.”
“This
funding
helps
us
solve
this
fundamental
challenge
while
giving
firms
the
data
foundation
they
need
to
deploy
AI
strategically,”
Alshak
said.
“We’re
not
just
automating
time
—
we’re
creating
the
time
intelligence
layer
that
will
transform
how
all
knowledge
industries
operate.”
To
read
more
about
Laurel
and
Alshak,
see
my
February
post
or
listen
to
my
2022
LawNext
podcast
interview
with
Alshak.