Newcode.ai, a Norwegian legal AI startup, has closed $13.5 million in Series A funding led by OnDean Forward, the investment vehicle tied to e-discovery pioneer Andrew Sieja. The round included backing from The LegalTech Fund, Antiportfolio Ventures, and Rel Labs, the investment arm of legal software giant Relativity, according to Artificial Lawyer.
The startup declined to share its valuation, but the fresh capital brings its recent fundraising total to $20 million following a $6.5 million seed round earlier this year led by The LegalTech Fund and Alliance VC. CEO Maged Helmy, who founded the company in Oslo, Norway, said the money will fuel an American expansion.
It's a bet on infrastructure at a moment when legal AI has moved from novelty to necessity. Newcode positions itself as what it calls "the configurable AI harness for legal work"—a model-agnostic platform designed to plug into existing workflows rather than replace them. The system connects to more than 700 enterprise tools through Model Context Protocol integrations and runs on Microsoft Azure, offering document drafting, cross-jurisdictional research, and centralized governance controls that IT departments and managing partners both care about.
The Relativity connection runs deeper than a line item on the cap table. OnDean Forward's Sieja built Relativity into the dominant player in e-discovery before stepping back from day-to-day operations. He now serves as principal partner alongside Nick Robertson, Relativity's former COO. Rel Labs joined the round separately. "Rel Labs is all about investing in builders who are harnessing the power of AI to reimagine how legal work gets done," Relativity CEO Phil Saunders said.
Newcode claims more than 60 clients as of August 2026 across law firms and government agencies in Europe and the United States. The customer list includes partnerships with Robinson+Cole and The Bar of Ireland, among other firms. The company reported in late August 2026 that annual recurring revenue more than tripled over the past year but wouldn't provide hard numbers, a common dance among well-funded startups reluctant to expose their scale too early.
Robinson+Cole integrated Thomson Reuters' Deep Research tool into the Newcode platform in April, becoming the first Am Law 200 firm to adopt it, according to the firm. The Bar of Ireland selected Newcode in June to provide AI tools to its barrister membership after what it described as an evaluation process.
The competitive landscape is getting expensive. Harvey, perhaps the most visible legal AI startup, raised $200 million at an $11 billion valuation in March. Checkbox, which targets in-house legal teams, closed a $23 million Series A in January. Investors are placing bets across the stack, from consumer-facing chatbots to enterprise infrastructure plays like Newcode.
"They are consistent on one point: they want AI platforms that adapt to how they operate, not platforms that force them to adapt," said Zach Posner, managing partner at The LegalTech Fund, which backed Newcode in both rounds. It's a pitch that resonates in an industry built on precedent and process, where cultural inertia often matters as much as technical capability.
Helmy, who holds a PhD, now runs a company with offices in Norway, Sweden, Ireland, and the United States, according to its privacy policy. Newcode lists more than 60 employees on its website; LinkedIn suggests a range between 51 and 200, a wide enough band to signal either rapid hiring or modest organizational opacity. Business Plus reported that the Irish operation, led by Donna O'Leary, doubled headcount following the Series A.
"The AI revolution is ultimately a great thing for law firms," Helmy said. Whether firms see it that way likely depends on how quickly they can retrain associates and reconfigure billing models. For now, the venture money keeps flowing.
