Teachers’ pension plan invests $50-million in legal AI firm Harvey as competition heats up with LLM giants

Harvey AI Corp. CEO Winston Weinberg. The company can maintain an edge by going deep into areas tailored for law firms, such as tools for due diligence, Mr. Weinberg says. Ayesha Kazim/Supplied

Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan has placed a bet in the crowded, fast-growing artificial-intelligence-powered legal software space, investing US$50-million in Harvey AI Corp., one of the leading platforms selling smart digital tools to lawyers.

The investment by Teachers’ Venture Growth (TVG), a unit of the pension giant that invests in later-stage technology companies globally, is an extension of a financing the San Francisco-based company announced earlier this month. At the time, Harvey said it had raised US$550-million led by private capital firms Diffusion and Lightspeed Ventures, at a valuation of US$15.5-billion. The TVG investment, the first by a Canadian institutional investor in the company, brings the round’s size to US$600-million.