Series B funding to fuel hiring drive and support in-house legal teams shifting work away from external counsel.
Legal tech company Wordsmith has raised $70 million in a Series B funding round led by Highland Europe and Index Ventures, as it accelerates international expansion and deepens its footprint in Ireland.
The company, co-founded by Dublin-born chief operating officer Robbie Falkenthal, is targeting significant growth in both headcount and market reach.
“Ireland is where I’m from, and as a country with so many major companies basing their European headquarters here, it’s a place where we see great potential”
Wordsmith plans to scale to 300 employees globally by the end of 2026, with a particular focus on strengthening its go-to-market teams and expanding further into the United States.
The latest funding comes as in-house legal departments increasingly bring work back from external law firms, driven by cost pressures and a need for greater operational visibility. Wordsmith’s platform is designed to support this shift by streamlining legal workflows and enabling internal teams to handle more routine work efficiently.
Irish expansion plans
“Ireland is where I’m from, and as a country with so many major companies basing their European headquarters here, it’s a place where we see great potential,” said Falkenthal. “We are going to be expanding in Ireland this year and building out a presence which will support our growing Irish customer base.”
He added that corporate legal teams are under mounting pressure to deliver more value internally. “In-house legal teams here face the same pressure as everywhere else: handle more of the work internally rather than sending it to a law firm, and show the business what legal is actually doing.”
Founded in late 2023 by chief executive Ross McNairn, Falkenthal and chief technology officer Volodymyr Giginiak, Wordsmith has already built a customer base of more than 500 organisations. Clients include the Financial Times, Revolut, BT, Penneys and Irish fintech Wayflyer.
The company’s platform acts as a centralised intake and workflow system for legal requests within organisations. McNairn describes it as the entry point for legal work across the business.
“Wordsmith is the front door that does the work,” he said. “Requests come in, the routine gets handled, lawyers approve what needs judgment, and every step is recorded as it happens.”
At the core of the product is a structured approach built around four key actions: receive, route, resolve and record. Each legal request is captured in one place with clear ownership and context. The system applies predefined legal playbooks to automate routine tasks, escalating matters to lawyers when risk or judgement is required.
McNairn’s background includes a career in law followed by senior roles at travel technology company Skyscanner, where he was part of the leadership team during its $1.7 billion acquisition. Falkenthal previously spent more than six years with KPMG in Dublin before moving into leadership roles at Perk.
Wordsmith’s leadership believes the ongoing transformation of corporate legal functions is creating a significant opportunity for technology platforms that can embed directly into business operations. By enabling legal teams to manage workloads more transparently and efficiently, the company aims to become a core part of enterprise infrastructure.
The fresh capital will be used to support hiring across sales, marketing and customer success, alongside continued product development. Ireland is expected to play an important role in that expansion, reflecting both the founders’ ties to the country and the concentration of multinational firms operating regional headquarters there.
As demand grows for tools that help businesses balance efficiency with risk management, Wordsmith is positioning itself at the centre of a structural shift in how legal work is delivered inside large organisations.
Image at top: Wordsmith chief operating officer Robbie Falkenthal
-
Bank of Ireland is welcoming new customers every day – funding investments, working capital and expansions across multiple sectors. To learn more, click here
-
For support in challenging times, click here
-
Listen to the ThinkBusiness Podcast for business insights and inspiration. Latest episodes are here. You can also listen to the Podcast on:
-
Spotify
-
SoundCloud
-
Apple
