NPIF - Maven Equity Finance, managed by Maven as part of the first Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund, has realised its investment in Summize, a high-growth legal technology business delivering intelligent contract lifecycle management solutions to organisations across the UK and the US. The exit has generated a strong 8.3x return for the Fund.
The Fund originally invested in the Manchester-based business in May 2019, when it was pre-revenue, and has since provided several rounds of follow-on funding to support its go-to-market strategy and expansion into the US.
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.
The exit follows Summize’s recent £40 million funding round led by Maven’s buyout fund, alongside other institutional investors. The new investment will support further expansion of the company’s product, team and global customer base.
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.
Listen to Tom Dunlop, Founder and CEO of Summize, on the Invested Podcast
“Our early investors including NPIF were critical to our early success, providing the backing we needed at the start of our journey and validating our product-market fit. We are proud to be a Northern business that has scaled into a truly global company from Manchester, opening East and West Coast US offices to meet growing demand from across North America and Europe. I am pleased to continue our journey with Maven alongside our other investors as we enter the next phase of growth with Summize.”
Tom Dunlop, CEO of Summize
“The full exit for NPIF - Maven Equity Finance marks an excellent outcome for the Fund, delivering a strong 8.3x return. It highlights the value of early-stage equity investment by an experienced backer like Maven and demonstrates the strength of high-potential regional teams such as Summize in building both market-leading technology and highly scalable businesses. Summize has evolved from a pre-revenue concept into a robust SaaS platform, supported by funding from NPIF and the guidance of Maven. Tom and his team are now well placed to continue their strong momentum, with growing recurring revenues as they move into the next stage of their journey.”
Karen de Meza, Partner at Maven
Equity finance can be incredibly powerful in supporting early-stage ventures as they enter and establish themselves in the market. We are proud to have supported Summize from an early stage through several rounds of follow on funding, and this exit shows how successful the business has become with support from NPIF, showing the long-term impact of the Fund. It also goes to show just how strong the Northern tech ecosystem is, and we’re proud to be supporting even more through NPIF II.
Debbie Sorby, Senior Investment Manager at British Business Bank