Manchester tech disruptor Summize has secured a £5million investment deal to grow in the US.
The firm which specialises in contract lifecycle management software for firms including Fujifilm, Everton FC, NCC Group, Moonpig and The Modern Milkman secured the funding from YFM Equity Partners (YFM) and Maven Capital Partners (Maven).
The funding, raised through YFM’s British Smaller Companies VCTs and the Maven VCTs will see Summize capitalise on the growth opportunity in the global CLM software market, which is forecast to reach $3.30bn by 2027.
The business will expand into key overseas territories and invest in product innovation, sales and marketing.
Tom Dunlop, co-founder and Chief Executive at Summize, said: “The Series A funding will enable us to build out our sales and marketing capabilities and accelerate expansion with a presence in the US, which is a huge potential market for us. We will also continue scaling what we have already built with further product development and innovation – we have a clearly defined target market and products with the functionality to meet a very real business need.”
Founded in 2018, Summize has experienced rapid growth by taking a disruptive approach to a traditional sector. Its world-first integrated contract lifecycle management (CLM) software makes contract workflows smarter and up to 85 per cent faster by digitising and automating manual legal processes.
The solution integrates with established platforms including Teams and Slack to improve collaboration between in-house legal and business users.
Mike Clarke, investment partner at YFM, said: “Summize are deliberately different and we like their disruptive approach. They have developed a really effective solution to helping drive legal departments and processes on the digital journey, and one which is attractive to users as it operates as an extension of existing ways of working.
“Summize also benefits from having a very experienced senior management team for this stage of the business, and a clear vision of where they are going. We are excited to be supporting them as they continue on their growth journey.”
James Darlington, Investment Director at Maven, said Summize has made strong commercial progress in terms of sales growth and new customer wins.
He said: "We have been impressed with the ambition, skill and knowledge of the management team and we are confident they will continue to drive the business forward and deliver on their growth ambitions.”
The YFM investment team comprised Laura Sisson, Mike Clarke and Ian Waterfield.
Other advisors on the deal included: Graph Strategy (James Tetherton and Matt Harrison), James Bagan, Chris Waterhouse, BHP (Fletcher Adamowicz), David Gallimore, Vista (Peter Warburton and Daniel Blake), Shoosmiths (James Foster and Sophie Davies), Catalysis (Mike Hicks), Philip Hare & Associates (Philip Hare and Tom Hopley) and Pannone (Mark Winthorpe and Miranda Foy).
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