Qualcomm backs SpotDraft to expand AI collaboration on devices and doubles to $400M

As demand grows for privacy-first enterprise AI that can run without sending private information to the cloud, SpotDraft has raised $8 million from Qualcomm Ventures in an additional Series B round to expand its expertise in reviewing device contracts for legal compliance.

The addition valued SpotDraft at about $380 million, the founders told TechCrunch, nearly double its $190 million valuation following $56 million Series B in February last year.

In all regulated sectors, businesses have moved quickly to test AI output, but concerns about privacy, security, and data management continue to dictate complex processes — especially legal ones, where contracts can include privileged information, intelligence, pricing, and contracts. The company’s research has been ongoing known data security and privacy as barriers to the spread of GenAI in professional services, pushing vendors like SpotDraft to adopt architectures that store valuable intelligence on the user’s device instead of running it in the cloud.

At Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit 2025, SpotDraft showed Its VerifAI workflow running end-to-end on laptops powered by the Snapdragon X Elite, is reviewing collaboration and updates online while saving the document on the local machine. SpotDraft says an Internet connection is still required for sign-in, authorization, and contract forms, but contract review, risk assessment, and revisions can be completed without sending documents to the cloud.

SpotDraft sees licensing as a way to further validate the business case for AI tools, arguing that stakeholder agreements often cannot pass through external cloud models due to privacy, security, and regulatory restrictions.

“The future of the AI ​​business is going to be – right now, there has to be an AI that is close to the document, which is very complex, unobtrusive, (and) legal, and these are the things that will move to the devices,” said Shashank Bijapur (pictured above, left), founder and CEO of SpotDraft, in an interview.

SpotDraft says that VerifAI’s tool capabilities go beyond just creating briefs, with a tool designed to use interactive handbooks and concepts directly within Microsoft Word, the way legal teams already work. “VerifAI will compare the contract against your guidelines, your playbooks, your past policies,” said Madhav Bhagat (pictured above, right), co-founder and CTO of SpotDraft.

Bijapur told TechCrunch that the need for an AI tool is clear in highly regulated sectors, including defense and pharma, where internal security checks and compliance requirements can delay or prohibit the use of cloud-based AI tools for critical applications.

Hardware models have closed faster than cloud-based systems, both in terms of output quality and response time, Bhagat said. “Now we’re at the point where, in terms of eval, we’re seeing a difference of as little as 5% between borderline models, and some of the best graphics on hardware,” he said, adding that the speed of the new chips is now “one-third of what we get in the cloud.”

Since its launch in 2017, SpotDraft said it has reached more than 700 customers, up from around 400 in February last year, counting Apollo.io, Panasonic, Zeplin, and Whatfix among its users. The company said adoption of its contract management platform is growing, with customers now creating more than 1 million contracts per year, contract volume growing 173% year-on-year, and nearly 50,000 users per month. It also expects 100% year-over-year growth in 2026, after growing 169% in 2024 and posting a similar rate of growth in 2025, though it hasn’t shared actual revenue.

SpotDraft plans to use the new headquarters to expand its business and AI capabilities and expand its business presence across the Americas, the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) region, and India, Bijapur said, adding that Qualcomm’s participation will only increase the cost of joint development and market share in the deployment of devices. The device-based workflow is currently available to a limited number of customers, and the startup expects it to grow rapidly as AI-compatible PC devices become more widely available.

Bengaluru- and New York-based SpotDraft said it has a team of 300-plus employees, including 15-20 in the US, where COO Akshay Verma is based, and four to five in the UK, with the rest working in Bengaluru.

To date, the startup has raised $92 million, including recent funding from Qualcomm Ventures. His first sellers including Vertex Growth Singapore, Trident Growth Partners, Xeed VC, Arkam Ventures, and Prosus Ventures.