Bench IQ is a legal tech startup that was newly launched to help lawyers understand how judges think. AI legal tech startup Bench IQ raises seed funding of $5.3 million in just two years. Now people can think that it’s some typical tool that tells about the probability of approving and denying some decisions, but instead of that, Bench IQ tells the reasons behind their decisions. This helps give lawyers a clear picture of the consequences and the advantages they could have before stepping into a court.
Bench IQ Strong Team
The Bench IQ Strong Team includes Maxim Isakov as CTO, also an early engineer for ROSS, and Jimoh Ovbiagele, CEO and a co-founder of ROSS Intelligence. Jeffrey Gettleman is CCO and a former partner at Kirkland & Ellis with years of experience in it. These people are making it stand stronger, and of course, there is a huge working team behind them who are constantly helping them. Their struggle is showing results, and finally, this year, the AI legal tech startup Bench IQ raises seed funding.
Bench IQ: From Idea to Investment
The start of Bench IQ happened last year in 2024, and they raised $2.1 million in pre-seed funding from firms like Haystack, Maple, and some well-known law firms like Cooley, Fenwick & West, and Wilson Sonsini. The company was also working with a pilot client at that time. By August 2025, the company had grown bigger and started getting a lot of attention. Now, AI legal tech startup Bench IQ raises seed funding again, which is $5.3 million, led by Battery Ventures and Inovia Capital, with the support of a few other investors.
What Makes Bench IQ Different
- Smart AI Insights: Layers can ask any question related to the judge, like, “How does this judge handle this particular case?” and then thousands of AI agents will scan all the data and will give the exact right answer. They make the best AI-powered legal judgment prediction.
- Not just a written opinion: In the US, 3% of rulings are only published as written opinions. Bench IQ works further from the other 97%, like oral rulings and transcripts, to give a fuller picture.
- Beyond Basic Analytics: There are many other similar legal tech startups, but most of them only talk in numbers and trends like LexisNexis. Bench IQ explains each thing; it does not work traditionally and makes sure that lawyers get all the information, which helps them in understanding things in a better way.
Why Bench IQ matters
In big court cases, knowing the way the particular judge thinks can be a game-changer because then a lawyer can prepare data accordingly and can also decide how he or she wants to communicate to make a better impression. The legal case is not only about the data and proofs; sometimes it’s also about knowing each thing and being the one in a court who can even tell anything about the judge and can be comfortable with them for better understanding and communication.
Judicial decision forecasting sounds like a very small thing and unnecessary for a few people, but only the lead players in a law firm know how it can be a game-changer. AI legal tech startup Bench IQ raises seed funding 2 times, and it shows how much this matters for the lawyers.
What’s next for Bench IQ?
The Bench IQ has some other legal tech startups as competitors, and to be the only one in the race, they have to increase the quality of their product and expand the business. They are also planning to build their engineering and support team in North America for better global expansion. They can expand from the federal courts to state courts across the U.S. AI legal tech startup Bench IQ raises seed funding, which is going to help them a lot in growing this year.
