Clause

Clause, founded in 2015 by Peter Hunn and Dan Selman, developed a platform for what it termed "Connected Contracting®". The company positioned itself in the legal technology market to address the inefficiencies of static, siloed contract management by creating dynamic legal agreements that could interact with external enterprise systems. Hunn, who served as CEO, and Selman, the CTO, leveraged their respective expertise in law and technology to pioneer the platform. Selman brought over two decades of experience in IT and software development, including roles at IBM, and holds a Master's in Artificial Intelligence. This background was instrumental in building Clause's core technology.

The company's primary offering was a platform that transformed traditional legal documents into live, data-driven assets. By embedding "Smart Clauses" into contracts, the technology allowed agreements to connect to real-time data sources, such as IoT devices, and enterprise systems like accounting, payment, and ERP software. This functionality enabled the automation of contract performance and compliance. For instance, a contract could automatically trigger a payment upon verified delivery of goods, or adjust pricing based on real-time data feeds like market indices or sensor readings. The platform was designed to serve a range of industries, including financial services, manufacturing, and insurance, by helping them reduce operating costs and minimize revenue leakage through automated obligation management.

Clause's business model focused on providing its technology via a web application and an API, allowing businesses to integrate these dynamic contracting capabilities into their existing workflows. The firm also co-founded the Accord Project, a non-profit initiative to establish open-source standards for smart legal contracts. After several funding rounds, including a key Series A in 2019 led by Galaxy Digital with strategic investment from DocuSign, Clause had built a significant partnership with the e-signature giant. This collaboration culminated in DocuSign acquiring Clause's intellectual property and hiring its team in 2021 to integrate the technology into the DocuSign Agreement Cloud, deepening its capabilities in smart agreements and contract lifecycle management (CLM).

Keywords: smart legal contracts, connected contracting, contract automation, legal technology, DocuSign acquisition, Peter Hunn, Dan Selman, contract lifecycle management, CLM, Accord Project, dynamic contracts, data-driven agreements, enterprise systems integration, IoT contracts, automated compliance, legal tech API, real-time data integration, smart clauses, digital agreements, automated payments