Legislate
Founded 2020 · 13 employees on LinkedIn · 5 known investors
Legislate produces a podcast in which it interviews founders, CEOs and legal professionals about their businesses and legal topics. The page consists of a list of podcast episodes rather than a product description.
Also known as Legislate Technologies · Legislate.ai
Founders & leadership
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Investors · 5
Also in the syndicate · 3
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Legislate (Legislate Technologies) is a UK legal technology company that builds a SaaS platform allowing non-lawyers to create, sign, manage and search lawyer-approved contracts. The product uses smart forms to customise agreements, a dashboard to centralise contract activity and data, smart folders to organise contracts by party, electronic signature and approval workflows, and querying tools that surface key terms such as renewal dates, termination conditions and obligations. Contracts are made machine-readable so that business users can compare, create, query and sign agreements without outside legal involvement.
Underpinning the platform is a patented knowledge graph and ontology approach to legal terms, which allows customers to define their own ontologies of contract terms and then semantically search across an entire contract database. The company has published technical explainers on legal schema, ontologies, knowledge graphs versus relational databases, semantic reasoning and faceted search, and offers a Zapier integration. Alongside the product, Legislate publishes plain-English guides on contracts, legal tech, AI contract review and contract data, and produces a podcast in which its team interviews founders, CEOs and legal professionals.
The legislate.ai domain is currently operated by TextMine Limited, with the footer describing the site as a contract and legal tech resource hub and listing TextMine and Legislate.tech as related products.
Founding story
Legislate Technologies was founded by Charles Brecque, who serves as CEO, and emerged from the Oxford startup and spinout ecosystem, applying knowledge graph technology to the problem of creating, negotiating and managing simple legal documents such as NDAs and tenancy agreements.
Business model
Software-as-a-service subscription: Legislate sells access to a contract creation, signature, storage and querying platform. At the time of its seed round the company operated a closed beta with a paid subscription taken up by early adopters.
Paid subscriptions to the contract management platform.
Traction
Following a June 2020 closed-beta launch, the company reported organic monthly doubling of its user base and more than 800 users, including early adopters of its paid subscription, as of March 2021. By 2023 it reported customers using the platform primarily for employment, consultancy, internal and terms-of-business contracts.
Latest developments
In 2023 the company announced a $3.6M round to double down on UK sales and prepare for international expansion, attended SaaStr 2023 and Legal Innovation & Tech Fest in Sydney, and its CEO was named in Brummell's Ones to Watch 2023. The legislate.ai site now operates as a contract and legal tech resource hub under TextMine Limited, publishing guides on AI contract review, clause libraries, contract data extraction and country-specific legal operations checklists.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history
Market position
Positioned as a legal-tech provider for SMEs and mid-market businesses, differentiated from generic document tools by machine-readable contracts and semantic search; recognised in UK startup rankings including Startups.co.uk's Startups 100 (ranked 92 in 2023) and TechRound's 2022 top 100 (ranked 49) and SaaS66 2022 (ranked 17).
Patented knowledge graph technology and customer-defined ontologies of legal terms that make contracts machine-readable and semantically searchable by non-legal staff, rather than storing contracts as unstructured documents.
Technology
A patented knowledge graph and ontology layer that structures contract data and makes contracts machine-readable, enabling semantic search across contract databases, faceted search, and aggregation of contract data points such as start and end dates or confidentiality terms. The company was granted a second US patent for semantic document generation in 2022. The platform also includes smart forms for document generation, e-signature and approval workflows, and integrations such as Zapier.
Go-to-market
Direct sales into the UK market, supported by content marketing (contract guides, legal-tech explainers, topic hubs and case studies), a founder-and-executive interview podcast, and participation in accelerator and industry programmes, awards listings and conferences including SaaStr 2023, Legal Geek 2022, SEMANTiCS 2022 and Legal Innovation & Tech Fest in Sydney.
Small and medium-sized businesses, startups and scaleups that create too few contracts to justify dedicated legal counsel, mid-market companies managing hundreds or thousands of agreements, and large landlords creating and managing tenancy agreements. Common use cases include employment contracts, consultancy agreements, internal contracts, terms of business and NDAs.
Geography
UK-based, with roots in the Oxford startup and spinout ecosystem and a London announcement address; go-to-market focused on the UK with preparation for international expansion announced in 2023, including a trade mission to Sydney.
History
A £150,000 pre-seed round from private investors closed in January 2020. The closed-beta service launched in June 2020, and a £1 million seed round led by investors including Parkwalk Advisors and Perivoli Innovations was announced in March 2021. The company was accepted onto the Lawtech Sandbox 3.0 cohort and Tech Nation's Applied AI 4.0 cohort in 2022, was granted a second US patent for semantic document generation in 2022, joined the UK Legal Technology Association in February 2023, and announced a $3.6M round led by Parkwalk Advisors with Oxford Capital in March 2023. The legislate.ai site is now maintained by TextMine Limited.
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Timeline · 16
launches, deals, and filingsLegislate's CEO Charles Brecque was named on Brummell's Ones to Watch 2023 list recognising young professionals in the City.
Legislate was selected by the Department for Business and Trade to join a Lawtech mission to Sydney, attending the Legal Innovation & Tech Fest 2023.
Legislate announced $3.6M in funding led by Parkwalk Advisors with participation from Oxford Capital and high-profile angel investors, to be used to double down on UK sales and prepare for international expansion in 2023.
$3.6M source ↗
Legislate became a member of UKLTA, the Legal Technology Association for the UK.
Legislate ranked 92 in Startups.co.uk's index of the 100 most disruptive and innovative small businesses in the UK.
Legislate won a Southern Enterprise Award hosted by SME News for 'Best Contract Management Platform' in the South East.
Legislate ranked 49 in TechRound's 2022 top 100 innovative startups and tech companies, its second consecutive year on the list.
Legislate was selected for Tech Nation's Applied AI 4.0 cohort recognising UK scale-ups.
Legislate was accepted onto the Lawtech Sandbox 3.0 cohort of 31 lawtech pioneers.
CEO Charles Brecque gave a presentation on legal knowledge graphs at the SEMANTiCS conference in Vienna.
Legislate ranked 17 out of the UK's 66 best SaaS companies of 2022.
The company announced it had been granted its second US patent, covering semantic document generation, enhancing its knowledge graph technology.
Legislate Technologies secured a £1 million seed round with investors including Parkwalk Advisors (Opportunities EIS fund), Perivoli Innovations and private investors, to accelerate platform development and UK go-to-market.
Legislate launched its closed-beta contracting service, after which it reported organic monthly doubling of its user base.
Legislate closed a £150,000 pre-seed round raised from private investors.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
In the news
▸Research sources · 8
primary sources listed
- Legislatelegislate.ai · web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Legislate do?
- UK legal-tech company offering a knowledge-graph SaaS platform for creating, signing, managing and querying contracts.
- Who are Legislate's investors?
- Legislate's investors include Oxford, Parkwalk Advisors.