Thomson Reuters acquires pre-revenue legal AI startup Safe Sign

Thomson Reuters announced the acquisition of UK startup Safe Sign Technologies on August 21.[1] Safe Sign was developing large language models for the legal sector, and its stated goal was to democratize the law using AI.[2][4] The company had no customers at the time described.[1] Thomson Reuters said the acquisition was intended to help it provide customers with a professional-grade AI experience through CoCounsel AI Assistant.[1] The evidence does not specify when the acquisition will close or give a purchase price.[2]

Alexander Kardos-Nyheim founded Safe Sign in 2022 and was its CEO.[1] He graduated in law from Cambridge and trained as a solicitor at A&O Shearman.[1] Fortune reported that he built Safe Sign while training at Allen & Overy; Kardos-Nyheim said he got up at 4:30 a.m. to work on the startup before legal training.[3] He described Allen & Overy as tolerant of his startup work but said the arrangement was unsustainable.[3] Fortune reported his description of the sale as being for millions, despite Safe Sign having no revenue.[3]

Safe Sign was creating a proprietary legal large language model and training it on legal tasks and use cases.[1] Its 15-person team was to report directly to Thomson Reuters CTO Joel Hron and work with Thomson Reuters Labs.[1] Co-founder and chief scientist Jonathan Richard Schwarz joined the startup in late 2023.[1] Hron said Safe Sign’s expertise and approaches complemented Thomson Reuters’ work and could accelerate it.[1] He also said the company believed its content and expertise could support training models in law and other domains where it operates.[1]

Thomson Reuters CTO Joel Hron said the company had been investing and researching in this area for at least a year and a half.[1] He described buying Safe Sign at such an early stage as unusual for Thomson Reuters.[1] The acquisition price was undisclosed, while Kardos-Nyheim described the sale as being for millions and Fortune reported it as Thomson Reuters’ first pre-revenue acquisition in 174 years.[3][2] Sifted reported that Thomson Reuters said it had $8 billion for AI-focused acquisitions and had bought 10 startups, including legal technology companies, since 2020.[2]