An Australian artificial intelligence start-up is shaking up the legal industry after raising $17.2 million in fresh funding, pushing its valuation close to $100 million.
Haast, founded by Indian-Australian entrepreneur Kunal Vankadara with Liam King, has developed software that it claims can replicate the work of in-house legal and compliance teams — identifying risks in marketing and business content within minutes.
The Series A funding round was led by Peak XV Partners, with backing from DST Global Partners, Airtree Ventures, Aura Ventures and Black Sheep Capital. The latest raise takes Haast’s total funding to $24.4 million.
Founded in Sydney in 2023 and now headquartered in New York, the company is targeting a growing pain point for large organisations: managing the surge in content generated by artificial intelligence tools while maintaining compliance with legal and regulatory requirements.
Haast’s platform embeds compliance checks directly into day-to-day workflows, allowing companies to automate approval processes that traditionally rely on manual legal review. The company says this can significantly reduce delays while maintaining governance and audit trails.
According to its internal research, corporate content volumes have increased up to tenfold with the adoption of generative AI, while legal and compliance teams still spend around 70 per cent of their time on repetitive, manual tasks.
Chief executive Kunal Vankadara said the company was built to eliminate the trade-off between speed and compliance.
“Enterprises shouldn’t have to choose between moving fast and staying compliant,” he said.
“We’re embedding policy and risk standards directly into workflows so teams can operate at AI speed with confidence.”
Investors say the company is tapping into a rapidly expanding market, as businesses face increasing regulatory scrutiny alongside a boom in AI-generated content.
Peak XV Partners managing director Rohit Agarwal described the shift as a “content explosion”, noting that manual review processes are no longer viable at scale.
“Haast is solving a multi-billion-dollar bottleneck by turning compliance into an automated enabler.”
The company reports 4.5 times revenue growth over the past year and zero customer churn, with clients including unnamed Fortune 500 firms — indicators that have helped fuel investor confidence despite long sales cycles typical in enterprise software.
Haast plans to use the new capital to expand product development, enhance its automated workflow tools and grow its international customer base.
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