Relativity, a well-known name in the e-discovery space, is continuing to prove itself as a top dog in the Chicago tech startup scene.
On Thursday, Relativity announced a strategic investment from tech investor Silver Lake. Although the exact size of the investment was not revealed, this new deal values Relativity at $3.6 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal. It also reportedly makes Silver Lake the company’s largest shareholder with a significant minority stake with a significant minority stake.
It’s rare for Relativity to seek outside funding. The company hasn’t raised funding since 2015, when it received a $125 million investment from ICONIQ. Relativity says that ICONIQ will continue to play a role in the company and remain a key investor.
Relativity has designed a SaaS platform that helps law firms and legal teams search through large amounts of documents and data in order to find relevant information for litigations, investigations and other legal proceedings. The company holds a significant chunk of the e-discovery marketshare, with 198 of the Am Law 200 using Relativity’s products. Overall, Relativity has over 300,000 annual users in 49 countries managing more than 145 billion files.
This new investment will help Relativity devote more resources into the development and growth of its products — this includes growing its cloud product RelativityOne and investing in its AI-based communication surveillance platform Relativity Trace. In addition, Relativity plans to bring its products to new geographies in 2021.
“Silver Lake is one of the most respected voices in technology, and their investment in Relativity signifies their confidence in our commitment to innovate and deliver best-in-class technology across the industries we serve,” Relativity CEO Mike Gamson said in a statement. “We are fortunate to welcome Silver Lake as our new partner and look forward to their participation on our board of directors. This partnership will help us continue to build upon our strong foundation with our dynamic global community of users, customers and partners as we carry out our mission and drive the industry forward.”
