Maven's buyout fund leads £40m investment in legal tech business

Maven has led a £40 million funding and reinvestment round in Summize, a high growth legal technology business delivering intelligent contract lifecycle management solutions to organisations across the UK and the US. 

The transaction includes a substantial new investment through Maven’s institutional buyout fund and a commitment from Maven Investor Partners, its deal-by-deal investment vehicle which enables experienced investors to access private equity opportunities. The investment represents the third investment completed by Maven's UK Regional Buyout Fund II, which is actively making equity investments of up to £20 million to support growth.

Alongside Maven, new investors Kennet Partners and Federated Hermes Private Equity, and existing investor YFM Equity Partners also participated in the funding round.

The transaction demonstrates Maven’s ability to back high-potential businesses at multiple stages of their growth journey, leveraging its unique multi fund strategy. It also enabled Maven to deliver a profitable partial realisation for its VCT investors of up to 3.7x the original investment, which includes the value of a retained equity stake. 

Summize helps in-house legal teams manage contracts directly within familiar tools, such as Microsoft Word, Outlook, Teams, Slack, Salesforce, and HubSpot, driving greater efficiency, accuracy, and speed. Its innovative platform applies legal context to ensure precision and trust throughout the contracting process.

"We founded Summize to bring contract clarity to the entire business, and Maven, along with our additional investors, has been a key partner in supporting that mission,” said Tom Dunlop, CEO and co-founder of Summize. “Contracting shouldn’t be a bottleneck for growing midsize companies, so our goal is to help in-house legal teams use AI to reduce manual work and spend more time as strategic partners and business accelerators.”

Listen to Tom Dunlop, Founder and CEO of Summize, on the Invested Podcast

This deal marks a natural transition in Summize’s long term growth journey, reflecting the business’s evolution from early stage scale up to an established and strategically positioned platform, following five consecutive years of more than 100% ARR growth as the company has scaled globally. 

The company has also expanded its U.S. footprint with new offices in Boston and San Diego, as well as a new, larger UK office in Manchester to support its global team headcount growth of 59% in the past year. Customers benefiting from Summize include Revolut, AMC Networks, Sigma, Matillion, as well as numerous U.S. professional sports teams in the NBA, MLB and NFL.

“This investment highlights Maven’s long-standing commitment to support innovative, founder-led technology businesses with global potential. Summize has progressed from an early stage concept into a highly scalable SaaS platform with a growing international customer base. We are delighted to lead this new investment in Summize at a pivotal point in its growth journey, and the opportunity to partner with experienced investor, Kennet Partners, who bring considerable US market expertise and B2B software specialism, will further strengthen the platform for future expansion.” 

Jeremy Thompson, Partner at Maven

“This transaction delivers an attractive and strategic outcome for our VCT investors, providing a meaningful partial realisation while allowing us to maintain an ongoing equity stake in a high-performing business. Summize continues to demonstrate strong operating momentum and recurring revenue growth, and we believe the decision to reinvest alongside new institutional partners positions the company well for sustained long-term value creation.”

Ewan MacKinnon, Partner at Maven and Fund Manager for the Maven VCTs