Mike Lynch's Invoke Aims to Replace M&A Lawyers With Robots

Could the armies of lawyers needed to close billion-dollar deals soon be a thing of the past? That's what Invoke Capital, the London-based venture firm run by former Autonomy Plc Chief Executive Officer Mike Lynch, is betting with its latest project financing. Invoke said Wednesday that it's making an investment in Luminance, a U.K. startup using artificial intelligence to process legal documents and automate due diligence in mergers and acquisitions. While the amount of the investment was not disclosed, Lynch said in an interview that the figure was "in the low millions." Luminance says its software can read and understand hundreds of pages of legal documents a minute, enabling lawyers to carry out due diligence far faster than previously.