Luminance

Luminance AI is a United Kingdom-based technology company founded in 2015 by Adam Guthrie and Dr. Graham Sills in Cambridge. It is recognised as a pioneer in Legal-Grade™ AI, offering artificial intelligence solutions that support contract automation, review, negotiation, and management across enterprises and law firms. Its proprietary “mixture of experts” approach, known as the “Panel of Judges,” combines multiple AI models to ensure high accuracy in legal document analysis. 

The system reads and understands complex legal documents, identifies clauses, detects anomalies, manages risks, and improves overall workflow efficiency. Luminance’s platform has been trained on more than 150 million legally verified documents and integrates with tools such as Microsoft Word, Outlook, Salesforce, and several virtual data rooms.
 

The company serves more than 700 clients across over 70 countries, including major corporations such as AMD, Hitachi, LG Group, BBC Studios, and Staples. Its Legal-Grade™ AI provides end-to-end contract lifecycle management, from generation to post-execution analysis, allowing businesses to automate repetitive tasks, ensure compliance, reduce legal spending, and enhance operational transparency.
 

Luminance has raised around US$165 million over seven funding rounds. Its most recent Series C round in February 2025 secured US$75 million, led by Point72 Private Investments with participation from Forestay Capital, RPS Ventures, Schroders Capital, and existing investors such as March Capital, National Grid Partners, and Slaughter and May. The company reported annual revenue of £9.4 million as of December 2023 and has over 200 employees.
 

The leadership team includes Chief Executive Officer Eleanor Lightbody, Co-Founder and Chief Technical Architect Adam Guthrie, Co-Founder and Director of AI Dr. Graham Sills, Chief Operating Officer Daniel Lumby, and Chief Revenue Officer Sean Sullivan. Luminance continues to expand globally, developing AI solutions for legal and corporate use to make contract analysis and management faster, more reliable, and efficient.

Luminance AI was founded in 2015 in Cambridge, United Kingdom, by Adam Guthrie and Dr Graham Sills, in collaboration with mathematicians and computer scientists from the University of Cambridge. The idea behind the company was to create a platform that could apply artificial intelligence to the legal field, automating the reading and understanding of complex legal documents. 

The founders recognised that the legal industry faced large volumes of data and manual work in due diligence, contract review, and compliance. Their goal was to build an AI system capable of identifying clauses, detecting anomalies, and managing risks across legal documentation more efficiently than traditional methods.

The company began by training its AI models on large sets of legally verified documents to ensure domain-specific understanding. Its technology was built using unsupervised and machine learning models, combining different algorithms to form what later became known as the “Panel of Judges” or “mixture of experts” approach. 

This allowed Luminance’s system to produce balanced insights by comparing the output of several specialised AI models, ensuring accuracy in contract interpretation. The company’s first product focused on due diligence, helping lawyers quickly review documents during mergers and acquisitions.
 

As its technology developed, Luminance expanded its platform to cover the entire contract lifecycle, including contract drafting, negotiation, execution, and post-execution analysis. The system was integrated into Microsoft Word, Outlook, Salesforce, and various virtual data rooms, allowing smooth adoption by legal teams. 

By 2019, Luminance had become widely used by law firms and enterprises worldwide. It attracted a growing customer base that included major organisations such as Hitachi, AMD, LG Group, and BBC Studios.
 

The company has raised over US$165 million in funding through seven rounds. Early investors included Talis Capital, Slaughter and May, and Vision. In April 2024, Luminance closed a US$40 million Series B round led by March Capital. 

In February 2025, it raised another US$75 million in a Series C round led by Point72 Private Investments, with participation from Forestay Capital, RPS Ventures, Schroders Capital, and other existing backers. Over the 12 months leading to this round, it secured more than US$115 million in total investment. These rounds have strengthened its market position and supported its expansion into new regions, including the United States and Australia.
 

Luminance’s leadership team evolved as the company scaled. Eleanor Lightbody became Chief Executive Officer, guiding the firm’s global growth. Other key members include Adam Guthrie as Chief Technical Architect, Dr Graham Sills as Director of AI, Daniel Lumby as Chief Operating Officer, Sean Sullivan as Chief Revenue Officer, and Jaeger Glucina as Chief of Staff. The company currently employs over 200 people and continues to recruit across departments.
 

Luminance’s Legal-Grade™ AI has been developed using over 150 million legally verified documents, incorporating multiple AI techniques such as transformers, embeddings, generative AI, and natural language processing. The technology operates on a cloud-based system and provides a full suite of tools for corporate contract management, diligence, and discovery. Its software is used by over 700 clients in 70 countries, providing businesses with automated document analysis, clause recognition, and compliance assurance.
 

In recent years, Luminance has been featured by major outlets such as BBC, CNBC, and Sky News for its AI applications in contract negotiation and legal automation. The company reported annual revenue of £9.4 million in 2023 and continues to focus on expanding its enterprise-grade AI capabilities. Today, Luminance remains one of the leading providers of legal AI solutions globally, applying advanced artificial intelligence to improve accuracy, compliance, and efficiency in corporate and legal processes.

The mission of Luminance AI is to transform the way organisations manage and understand their legal documents by using advanced artificial intelligence. The company aims to bring Legal-Grade™ AI to every part of the contract lifecycle, helping businesses automate repetitive tasks, reduce risks, and improve accuracy in decision-making. By combining deep legal knowledge with machine learning, Luminance supports law firms and corporations in handling contracts more efficiently, ensuring compliance, and saving time and cost. Its mission is to make contract management simpler, faster, and more transparent while maintaining the highest standards of legal precision and data security.

Luminance AI’s vision is to create a world where artificial intelligence becomes an essential and trusted partner in the legal and corporate sectors. The company seeks to lead the global transition towards AI-driven contract management by providing tools that improve accuracy, productivity, and understanding of complex legal data. Luminance aims to continue developing AI systems that can learn, reason, and assist professionals in making better business decisions. Its long-term goal is to ensure that every business, regardless of size or sector, can use Legal-Grade™ AI to gain full visibility, compliance, and efficiency in all legal operations.

Luminance AI has been widely recognised for its innovation in the legal technology sector. It has been featured by BBC, Sky News, CNBC, and City A.M. for its pioneering work in using AI for contract negotiation and analysis. The company has received awards for excellence in legal automation and has been named among the top AI firms transforming enterprise operations. Its clients include more than 700 organisations in over 70 countries, reflecting global trust in its technology. Luminance’s continued recognition highlights its leadership in applying domain-specific AI to legal and business processes with strong compliance and accuracy standards.

Luminance AI offers a complete range of products and services built around its proprietary Legal-Grade™ AI technology. The company’s solutions are designed to support law firms and corporate legal departments throughout the entire contract lifecycle, from creation and negotiation to execution, analysis, and compliance. All its tools are based on artificial intelligence developed by experts from the University of Cambridge and have been trained using millions of legally verified documents.

The core of Luminance’s technology is its “mixture of experts” approach, known as the “Panel of Judges”. This system uses multiple AI models to analyse legal documents from different perspectives, reaching a balanced and highly accurate understanding. The technology identifies clauses, tracks changes, detects risks, and automates reviews while ensuring that all processes meet legal and compliance standards.
 

Luminance’s flagship product, Luminance Corporate, provides end-to-end AI-powered contract management for businesses. It helps organisations draft, negotiate, and execute contracts directly within platforms like Microsoft Word and Outlook. The AI-driven repository gives teams full visibility across all agreements, ensuring deadlines and obligations are not missed. The system includes an AI chatbot that can answer legal questions, redraft clauses automatically, and identify non-compliance before or after signing. It also integrates with Salesforce and several Virtual Data Rooms (VDRs), allowing companies to manage contracts securely in a single workspace.
 

Another key product is Luminance Diligence, which is mainly used by law firms and corporate teams for due diligence processes during mergers, acquisitions, or audits. It uses AI to read large volumes of contracts quickly and identify important clauses, anomalies, or missing information. This helps lawyers and analysts focus on key risks and saves significant time compared to manual review. Diligence is often used by major legal firms for transaction work where accuracy and speed are essential.
 

The company also offers Luminance Discovery, a tool that helps teams review and understand complex document sets during investigations or compliance audits. It assists in identifying relevant materials, grouping related files, and flagging unusual data patterns. This product is particularly useful for eDiscovery tasks and large-scale litigation support, where teams need to find essential information from thousands of documents in a short time.
 

In addition to its main products, Luminance provides advanced AI-powered negotiation and contract automation tools. These allow teams to generate standardised contracts instantly, suggest edits in real time, and automate approval workflows. The system supports continuous improvement by learning from user input and legal precedent. Luminance’s products are built with high-level security measures, including ISO27001 certification and a dedicated Security Advisory Board.
 

All of Luminance’s tools are cloud-based, meaning they can be deployed instantly without complex installation. The platform’s intuitive design enables users to be operational within 24 hours. Luminance’s products are used by over 700 organisations in more than 70 countries, including companies such as Hitachi, AMD, BBC Studios, and LG Group.