New York-based Parrot, which has developed an artificial intelligence platform for lawyers, has raised $11 million in a Series A funding round led by West Coast venture firms Amplify Partners and XYZ Venture Capital. Los Angeles-based K5 Global and executives from Alphabet, Meta, Uber, Flexport, Affirm and Thumbtack also participated.
In 2021, Parrot raised $3.1 million in a seed round, with participation from Flexport founder Ryan Petersen, TPG Capital’s founding partner David Bonderman and Foobar Technologies founder David Helgason.
“This is a big leap forward in our mission to bring the power of artificial intelligence to depositions and the broader legal industry: enhancing efficiencies, reducing costs, and most importantly, empowering attorneys to achieve more for their clients,” Parrot CEO Aaron O’Brien, who previously worked at Facebook and Uber, said in a LinkedIn post.
Lawyer-driven Startup
“While there’s a lot of buzz around the disruptive potential of AI in the legal landscape, at Parrot we are witnessing first-hand how AI can address a meaningful market gap and ultimately transform the discovery work of legal professionals,” he added.
Parrot was founded in 2019 by long-time Florida prosecutor Eric Baum, his brother Bryan Baum and engineers with AI expertise. In 2021, they hired O’Brien, a prolific angel investor who held product manager roles at Facebook and Uber, to lead the startup.
Parrot has developed technology — including one that converts voice to text — that not only speeds up legal work, but also empowers lawyers. It provides stenographic transcripts and automated deposition summaries in mere seconds. It also enables quick navigation of deposition transcripts and recordings and streamlined case management. Parrot’s systems enable selective use of video. It stores all data on a cloud, enabling easy and ubiquitous access.
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‘Watershed Moment’
“Almost overnight, Parrot has become an indispensable part of our national deposition and case handling process,” said Michael B. Stevens, a managing partner at Parrot’s customer, Derrevere Stevens Black & Cozad. Parrot has elevated our entire firm to achieve better results on the defense side and larger recoveries in our plaintiff cases, he added.
Terming the current buzz around AI as a “watershed moment,” O’Brien says technology could address legal efficiencies. In the U.S., over 90% of court cases are resolved without ever going to trial, he pointed out, adding that the resolution process often involves gathering testimony in pre-trial legal depositions attended by attorneys and court reporters.
“However, this essential part of the justice system has been burdened by increasing expenses, a shortage of court reporters, and outdated procedures that complicate and delay the resolution process,” O’Brien said. Consequently, time is ripe to speed up justice using technologies offered by Parrot, he added.
