We’re thrilled to announce our investment in The Contract Network, a collaborative contract negotiation software company led by an amazing and experienced team.
One of the most inefficient processes in the business world today is contract negotiation. Jim Wagner and Bill Murphy, seasoned professionals with extensive experience in large corporations, were all too familiar with the wasted time and resources that plagued contract negotiations. Bill, the former CTO at Blackstone, had signed thousands of agreements and found the process to be reminiscent of Groundhog Day: always the same agreements, always identical issues, and consistently a lengthy and inefficient ordeal. Meanwhile, Jim, previously VP of Agreement Cloud Strategy for DocuSign, was dealing with the other side of the equation: analyzing tens of millions of agreements for the world's largest companies, and trying to decipher what they said after the fact. Jim encountered client after client who desperately sought ways to negotiate agreements faster.
Traditional contract negotiation is notorious for being time-consuming and tedious, often plagued by repetitive issues and slow communication. Businesses need a neutral place to come together and get deals done faster. Moreover, companies need a more effective way to manage contract compliance (handling notices, consents, waivers, etc.) throughout the duration of a contractual relationship. Jim and Bill, recognizing this immense problem, decided to tackle it head-on. Together, they launched The Contract Network (TCN).
TCN is a revolutionary software that offers an AI-powered platform for every stakeholder (businesses, lawyers, bankers, brokers, etc.) to collaborate on contract negotiations, radically accelerating the process. By providing a single platform for all parties, TCN not only simplifies the negotiation process but also solves contract compliance concerns. The solution is designed to complement existing contract lifecycle management systems and traditional communication methods like email. The TCN team believes that AI-powered collaboration will become the industry standard for contract negotiation, with The Contract Network emerging as the go-to destination.
The LegalTech Fund is a firm believer in leveraging technology to automate legal processes, which is precisely what The Contract Network is achieving for contract negotiations. We believe that if teams are equipped with technology to finalize agreements faster, they can dedicate more time and energy to tackling the other pressing issues facing businesses today. For example, TCN recently announced an agreement with Mayo Clinic to accelerate clinical trial agreement negotiation. And when it comes to medical innovation, time is of the utmost essence; companies can lose between $600K and $8M per day that a clinical trial is delayed.
With Jim and Bill's combined decades of experience, ranging from startups to large corporations, we trust that they are well-situated to solve such a significant problem. Please welcome The Contract Network to The LegalTech Fund family and let us know if we can connect you to learn more.