Contract management startup Icertis raises $150m in debt funding

Icertis Inc., a contract management startup that includes Google LLC and Microsoft Corp. among its clients, raised $150 million in debt financing.

Icertis announcement today’s funding round. The round, which was provided by Silicon Valley Bank, includes $75 million of convertible debt and a $75 million revolving credit facility.

Icertis, based in Bellevue, Wash., provides a software-as-a-service platform that businesses use to manage contracts such as vendor agreements. The startup claims it helps manage over 10 million contracts spanning over $1 trillion in transactions.

Companies can use the Icertis platform to create a library of contract templates for common types of transactions. Legal teams can leverage the library of templates to draft new agreements faster than would otherwise be possible. According to Icertis, its platform includes a Microsoft Word plug-in that makes it easier for users to find pre-packaged agreement templates and contract clauses.

The Icertis platform also helps in contract negotiation. The platform can analyze a company’s contracts with its suppliers and identify opportunities to negotiate more favorable terms. Icertis’ algorithms can, for example, detect situations where two business units buy the same product at two different price levels.

Before a new contract term is added to an agreement, it often needs to be approved by a company’s executives. Icertis provides features that make it easier for executives to review and approve new contract terms. A tool called DiscoverAI can automatically flag potential issues, such as conflicting terms, that need to be resolved before a deal can be finalized.

Contracts that have already been finalized can be scanned for useful business insights using another inbuilt tool called AI Studio. According to Icertis, AI Studio is able to find patterns in large legal datasets. The tool can, for example, identify the average length of a company’s contracts with a given supplier or determine how often a particular clause is added to agreements.

When needed, legal teams can use the Icertis platform to make bulk changes to agreements. According to the startup, this feature facilitates tasks such as compliance with regulatory changes.

“Clients across industries use our AI-powered contract intelligence platform to digitally memorize the purpose of each business relationship and ensure the intent of those deals is fully realized,” said Rajat Bahri, financial director of Icertis. “This new funding from Silicon Valley Bank is a major vote of confidence in our growth trajectory, strengthening our already strong capital position and allowing us to lean in to capture market share.”

According TechCrunch, Icertis generated annual recurring revenue of over $100 million last year. That number has since reportedly grown to more than 200 million. Icertis earlier detailed that twice as many new customers had adopted its platform in 2021 than the previous year.

Image: Icertis