SpotDraft

SpotDraft Raises $8M from Qualcomm Ventures to Advance On-Device AI for Enterprise Legal

SpotDraft Raises $8 Million from Qualcomm Ventures to Accelerate On-Device AI for Enterprise Legal Teams

SpotDraft, a fast-growing AI-powered contract lifecycle management (CLM) platform, has secured $8 million in fresh funding from Qualcomm Ventures as part of a strategic extension to its Series B round. The investment builds on SpotDraft’s $56 million Series B raise in February 2025 and signals growing enterprise confidence in privacy-first, high-performance artificial intelligence designed to operate directly on user devices rather than relying solely on the cloud.

The new capital will enable SpotDraft to further strengthen its AI-driven product capabilities, accelerate innovation in on-device legal intelligence, and expand its footprint across key global markets, including the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa (EMEA), and India. Beyond funding, the partnership with Qualcomm Ventures represents a deeper strategic alignment around the future of enterprise AI—one where sensitive data can be processed locally without compromising speed, security, or accuracy.

The Rise of On-Device AI in Enterprise Legal Workflows

Legal teams sit at the center of some of the most sensitive information within organizations, handling contracts, compliance documents, intellectual property, and confidential business agreements. Traditionally, most AI-driven legal tools have depended on cloud-based models, requiring organizations to send sensitive data outside their internal systems for processing. While cloud AI offers scalability and power, it also raises concerns around privacy, compliance, latency, and control.

SpotDraft’s approach challenges this paradigm. By enabling core legal intelligence workflows to run directly on user devices, the company is addressing a critical gap in enterprise AI adoption. This shift reflects a broader industry trend toward edge computing and on-device AI, where data processing happens closer to the source, reducing reliance on centralized cloud infrastructure.

The viability of this approach was recently demonstrated at Qualcomm Technologies’ Snapdragon Summit 2025, where SpotDraft showcased a fully on-device contract review system running on Snapdragon® X Elite laptops without cloud connectivity. The demonstration highlighted how enterprise-grade AI capabilities can function securely and efficiently in offline environments—an important milestone for organizations operating in highly regulated industries.

A Strategic Investment with Long-Term Implications

“This investment validates the architectural direction we’ve taken with SpotDraft,” said Shashank Bijapur, Co-founder and CEO of SpotDraft. “Legal teams handle some of the most sensitive business information, yet most AI tools still require sending that data to external cloud models. We’ve developed the SpotDraft platform to run core contract intelligence workflows locally on device, giving legal teams AI capabilities without compromising performance, privacy, security, or control.”

Bijapur’s statement reflects a growing enterprise demand for AI systems that align with strict regulatory requirements and internal governance frameworks. As data privacy regulations tighten globally—across regions such as Europe’s GDPR, India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, and evolving U.S. standards—organizations are increasingly prioritizing solutions that minimize data exposure.

Qualcomm Ventures’ investment underscores this shift. The firm has been actively backing companies at the forefront of AI infrastructure and applications, with a particular focus on edge computing and on-device intelligence. By supporting SpotDraft, Qualcomm Ventures is signaling confidence in the long-term relevance of localized AI for enterprise workflows.

VerifAI: Powering Contract Intelligence at the Edge

At the heart of SpotDraft’s on-device AI strategy is VerifAI, its proprietary contract review tool. Unlike traditional cloud-dependent solutions, VerifAI performs a wide range of contract analysis tasks entirely on local hardware. These include generating embeddings, extracting clauses, scoring risks, and applying edits directly within documents.

The tool leverages Snapdragon processors to execute complex AI workloads with low latency, enabling legal teams to review and modify contracts without sending sensitive data to external servers. While internet connectivity is required for functions such as login, license verification, and collaboration, the core contract analysis and editing processes operate offline.

This architecture represents a hybrid approach to enterprise AI. By separating critical data processing from cloud-based orchestration, SpotDraft allows organizations to balance privacy and scalability. Legal teams can benefit from AI-driven insights while maintaining strict control over confidential information.

“AI is driving a fundamental shift in how legal workflows are executed, bringing new levels of efficiency to an inherently text-intensive domain,” said Quinn Li, Senior Vice President at Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., and global head of Qualcomm Ventures. “SpotDraft’s ability to deploy their proprietary models securely on-device using Snapdragon platforms represents a meaningful advancement for a privacy-critical industry. We’re excited to enable high-performance, secure AI at the edge and see strong potential for this technology across the legal ecosystem.”

A Hybrid Architecture for the Future of Legal AI

SpotDraft’s technical strategy is built around a deliberate division of responsibilities between on-device and cloud-based systems. According to Madhav Bhagat, Co-founder and CTO of SpotDraft, this architectural choice is central to delivering both performance and privacy.

“SpotDraft is deliberately separating what needs to run close to the document from what benefits from the cloud,” Bhagat explained. “Core contract understanding, guideline checks, and recommendations run locally on device, while orchestration, learning, and large-scale analytics remain cloud-driven. Optimizing these workflows for the Qualcomm® Hexagon™ NPU allows us to deliver low-latency, private AI experiences without compromising accuracy.”

This hybrid model reflects a broader shift in enterprise AI design. Rather than treating cloud and edge computing as competing paradigms, SpotDraft integrates both to create a more resilient and adaptable system. Legal teams gain real-time insights without sacrificing data sovereignty, while organizations retain the ability to leverage cloud-based analytics and learning at scale.

Qualcomm Ventures and the Future of Enterprise AI

The investment in SpotDraft aligns with Qualcomm Ventures’ broader thesis that on-device AI will play a central role in the next generation of enterprise computing. The firm has previously invested in foundational AI companies such as Anthropic and Cerebras, as well as enterprise applications spanning industrial robotics, fleet safety, and security operations.

By supporting SpotDraft, Qualcomm Ventures is extending its focus to legal technology—a sector traditionally slow to adopt digital transformation but now undergoing rapid change driven by AI. Legal departments across industries are increasingly under pressure to manage growing contract volumes, accelerate deal cycles, and reduce operational risk. AI-powered CLM platforms like SpotDraft are emerging as critical infrastructure to meet these demands.

Rapid Growth and Market Momentum

SpotDraft’s growth trajectory reflects the accelerating adoption of AI-driven legal technology. To date, the company has raised $92 million from a diverse group of investors, including Qualcomm Ventures, Vertex Growth Singapore, Trident Growth Partners, Xeed VC, Arkam Ventures, and Prosus Ventures.

The company reports strong performance across key metrics. Customer acquisitions have grown by 100% year-over-year, while contract volumes have surged by 173% during the same period. Nearly 50,000 monthly active users now rely on SpotDraft to process more than 1 million contracts annually—a testament to the platform’s scalability and relevance in enterprise environments.

SpotDraft’s customer base includes prominent organizations such as Apollo.io, Panasonic, Zeplin, and Whatfix, among others. These companies span diverse industries, highlighting the platform’s versatility and its ability to adapt to different legal and operational requirements.

The company’s innovation has also been recognized by industry observers. SpotDraft has been featured in Fast Company’s list of the Most Innovative Companies and included in Forbes Asia’s “100 to Watch,” underscoring its growing influence in the legal tech ecosystem.

Redefining the Role of AI in Legal Operations

Beyond funding and growth metrics, SpotDraft’s strategy reflects a deeper transformation in how legal teams interact with technology. Historically, legal workflows have been characterized by manual processes, fragmented systems, and slow turnaround times. AI has begun to change this landscape, but concerns around data privacy and regulatory compliance have limited its adoption in sensitive use cases.

By bringing AI directly to the device, SpotDraft is redefining what is possible in legal operations. Legal teams can analyze contracts in real time, identify risks instantly, and collaborate more effectively—without exposing confidential information to external systems. This shift has the potential to fundamentally alter how organizations manage legal risk, negotiate agreements, and scale operations.

Moreover, on-device AI opens new possibilities for organizations operating in restricted environments where cloud connectivity is limited or prohibited. From government agencies to financial institutions and multinational corporations, the ability to run AI locally could become a critical differentiator.

Scaling Privacy-First AI Globally

With Qualcomm Ventures’ backing, SpotDraft is poised to accelerate its global expansion and deepen its technological leadership in on-device AI. The company plans to invest in further research and development, optimize its models for next-generation hardware, and expand enterprise partnerships across key regions.

As enterprise AI adoption continues to accelerate, SpotDraft’s approach offers a blueprint for balancing innovation with responsibility. By combining cutting-edge AI capabilities with privacy-first architecture, the company is positioning itself at the forefront of a new era in legal technology.

In a world where data security, regulatory compliance, and operational efficiency are increasingly intertwined, SpotDraft’s vision of on-device AI may well define the future of enterprise legal workflows.

Source Link:https://www.businesswire.com/

Share your love