Why Thomson Reuters just acquired an ex-Wachtell lawyer's AI startup

Thomson Reuters has acquired US startup Noetica, a deals data platform co-founded by a former Wachtell lawyer, in the latest sign of the information giant’s aggressive investment in AI-powered legal tools.

Founded in 2022 by Dan Wertman, previously a finance lawyer at the elite New York firm, alongside software engineer Tom Effland and former Deloitte consultant Yoni Sebag, Noetica provides real-time intelligence on M&A and debt transaction terms - effectively helping transactional lawyers know “what’s market” on deals.

Thomson Reuters was already a backer of Noetica, investing in the startup’s $22 million Series A round in 2024, alongside other investors including The LegalTech Fund.

All about data

The deal looks like a move to enhance Thomson Reuters’ flagship AI platform, CoCounsel. The company said it plans to integrate Noetica into CoCounsel, allowing lawyers to benchmark key deal terms, analyse trends and identify “deal-level risk signals” directly within their workflow.

That’s significant. CoCounsel has been steadily evolving from an AI assistant into a broader platform, combining drafting tools, legal research powered by Westlaw and Practical Law, with features like bulk document analysis on the way, according to its most recent CoCounsel update announced last month.

“Combined with CoCounsel, our AI technology, [Noetica] will bring realtime market insight directly into legal work,” said Raghu Ramanathan, president of legal professionals at Thomson Reuters, adding that the acquisition will be “a transformative leap forward” as it delivers AI to private practice and in-house lawyers.

According to Wertman, the platform touched more than $1 trillion in transactional volume last year and has become “a significant part of the corporate transactional ecosystem today.”

AI arms race

The acquisition confirms the direction of travel in the legal AI battle - that it’s increasingly about data. Whoever controls the deepest and most relevant legal datasets - and can embed them into tools - stands to gain a competitive advantage.

Thomson Reuters has been clear about its AI ambitions for some time now. Last year, it said it had around $10 billion earmarked for potential AI acquisitions through 2027. In 2024, it acquired UK-based Safe Sign Technologies, a startup developing legal-specific large language models and founded by a former trainee solicitor at A&O Shearman.

Others are also recognising the importance of data. Canadian legal AI company Spellbook raised $50 million at the back end of last year and recently launched a “Compare to Market” product that analyses contract terms against aggregated market data.

For Thomson Reuters, the Noetica deal looks like a bet that deals intelligence, embedded directly into CoCounsel, could become a key differentiator against fast-growing AI-native platforms like Harvey and Legora.