Legal tech company Summize was inspired by a conversation between co-founders Tom Dunlop and David Smith, who believed that “there must be a way to create a very quick summary of a signed contract.” Reflecting on the company’s overall purpose, Tom emphasises that “we exist to make any interaction with a contract more efficient or easier to understand.”

Incorporated in 2018, the Manchester-based company set out to tackle one of the most challenging tasks in legal technology, transforming unstructured legal documents into actionable insights. The founders developed an AI engine that Tom describes as working like a “contract heat map,” quickly highlighting the most relevant clauses so lawyers can focus on what matters. Summize’s aim is to make working with contracts quicker and more straightforward.

Summize launched its go-to-market strategy in Q1 of 2020, initially gaining traction from both law firms and in-house lawyers. Initial use revealed that many clients primarily viewed it as a summary tool, which provided Summize’s founders with a clearer understanding of how it could be positioned. They shifted the focus toward making it a practical tool for everyday contract work and for wider team use. With his background as a lawyer, Tom understood how difficult it can be to get whole teams to adopt a single product within a corporation. To address this, the team built a suite of tools designed to work seamlessly alongside the software that legal teams were already using.

To date, Summize has raised around £10m in equity investment to support its research and development. As of June 2025, the company had also achieved its fifth consecutive year of more than 100% growth in annually recurring revenue (ARR). Its product suite now connects with widely used platforms such as Slack, Outlook, Gmail, and Salesforce, enabling clients to create, review, and submit contracts within the tools they already use. This model has resonated particularly with mid-market organisations (100–5,000 employees) across various sectors, including technology, media and sports.

Among its clients are high-profile names, including several National Basketball Association (NBA) teams, Formula 1 teams and forward-thinking companies such as Revolut and Huel. Summize’s team has grown from 12 employees in 2020 to 75 by mid-2025. In 2023, the company expanded into the United States, opening its first office in Boston with three salespeople. The US team has since grown to 25 and now contributes around 70% of new ARR. Plans are already underway for further expansion, with a new office in San Diego on the horizon. Tom views the US market as a natural next step, given its scale and the higher level of awareness surrounding contract lifecycle management (CLM).

Looking ahead, Tom notes that while people often ask about the company’s end goal, his focus remains on solving real problems for legal teams. He sees a significant opportunity for Summize to establish itself firmly in the mid-market segment. As the company continues to broaden its product suite and strengthen its US presence, its trajectory reflects both the growth of a legal technology platform and the commitment of a team working to change how organisations manage contracts.