Launching September 2017, Fuse is a tech innovation space aimed at accelerating practical solutions to legaltech, regtech and dealtech challenges. A space where legal tech companies, clients and Allen & Overy’s legal technologists will collaborate to create solutions to some of the most intractable challenges faced by companies, financial institutions and law firms today. It is an integral part of Allen & Overy’s advanced delivery capability and complements the legal practice’s profile in the fintech arena.
The first company to join the innovation space, by invitation, is Nivaura, which is developing an automated and vertically integrated cloud based service for the issue and administration of financial instruments by small and medium-sized issuers. Nivaura team members will help to guide the tech companies selected to work in the space by sharing advice and business experiences whilst continuing to develop their own business.
After a careful selection of online applicants, a number of companies were invited to the pitch day where the inaugural Fuse selection committee which included J.P. Morgan’s Oli Harris, Funding Circle’s Robert Kerrigan, Amazon’s Alex Wong and Balderton’s Sam Myers, as well as Allen & Overy, selected the following seven companies:
- Avvoka – a digital platform incorporating a contract creation, workflow and analytics tool.
- Corlytics – a business providing regulatory risk intelligence, using forensic analysis and forecasting of fines and sentencing globally.
- iManage – previously known as RAVN, a business developing natural language processing and machine learning technology to organise, discover and summarise documents.
- Ithaca – a charitable not-for-profit enterprise aiming to create a mobile-responsive online technology platform to assist asylum seekers in gaining access to pro bono legal representation and advice.
- Legatics – a company that turns ‘paper and email’ based legal processes into simple and innovative software.
- Opus 2 International – originally a developer of litigation and transcript management software, now developing a tool to support lawyers with the prospectus verification process.
- Vable – a provider of content aggregation, automation and intelligence software.