KPMG has partnered with legaltech company SirionLabs to help in-house legal teams improve the way they manage their contracts.

The strategic alliance will give KPMG customers access to Seattle-based SirionLabs’ AI-powered contract lifecycle management technology, which digitises the entire contracting process from drafting and performance tracking to risk management and analytics. 

Nicola Brooks, head of contract management transformation at KPMG Law, said: “We see contract management as a strategic enterprise capability that delivers commercial value. All too often we find that contracting is siloed and an administrative burden on sales, procurement and legal. We challenge leaders to think about contracting in a new way.”

The alliance comes at a time when organisations across industries are seeking to accelerate their digital transformation programmes as the Covid-19 pandemic forces them to adopt remote working, disrupting traditional business operating models. Some 80% of CEOs said that more digital transformation had occurred over the last few months than in the previous few years combined, according to KPMG’s 2020 Global CEO Outlook survey.

Toby Yu, KPMG’s US contract management services leader, said: “Sirion’s industry-leading AI technology offers significant advances. It unlocks our human potential by giving us instant access to critical data, automating non-value-added tasks and driving behaviours that result in better contracting outcomes with your third-party relationships.”

Seattle-based SirionLabs last year secured a $44m funding round from investors including Tiger Global and Avatar Growth Capital, joining earlier backers such as Sequoia Capital India.

Amol Joshi, chief revenue officer at SirionLabs, said: “Sirion CLM is uniquely positioned to help enterprises transform into agile, resilient and cohesive businesses to effectively meet the threats and opportunities of the post-Covid world.”

The alliance follows the launch last October by KPMG of a global legal operations consultancy services arm, which it said would bring together ‘more than 14 years of credentials and experience in the legal transformation space’.

Last month, CMS and Cooley-backed legaltech startup Lupl secured $14m in funding for its matter management platform that enables in-house teams to bring all matter-related info together while still using their own systems. That followed legaltech company Brightflag’s $28m funding round in December – led by growth investors One Peak – to help finance its international expansion and fund further product innovation. In November, legaltech giant Epiq acquired legal operations consultancy Hyperion Global Partners as it moves forward with plans to build up its legal transformation business.