The recent acquisition of Fastcase-vLex by Clio for US $1 billion is more than a business transaction. It marks the moment when decades of purposeful innovation, guided by Fastcase and championed early by Spencer Trask & Co., converged to align artificial intelligence with the public good and open the law to everyone.

A Spencer Trask Mission Rooted in Access

Fastcase began as an idea sketched on a cocktail napkin. Co-founders Ed Walters and Phil Rosenthal, and Spencer Trask & Co. Chairman, Kevin Kimberlin, saw lawyers drowning in documents and citizens priced out of justice. Their answer was a legal research engine built to put primary law at every lawyer’s fingertips and, ultimately, in every citizen’s hands. Spencer Trask recognized the potential from the start, providing the first and only institutional capital and steadfast encouragement to keep the mission of access front and center.

Building an AI Foundation

Long before generative AI dominated headlines, Fastcase treated artificial intelligence as a core strategy. Key milestones came rapidly:

• 2017 – The team launched its AI Sandbox to experiment with large-scale text learning.
• 2018 – Acquiring Docket Alarm added predictive analytics drawn from millions of court filings.
• 2020 – Bringing Judicata into the fold introduced deep semantic mapping of case law, often described as a legal genome.
• 2023 – Merging with vLex created the world’s most comprehensive legal library and produced Vincent AI, the first tool able to draft arguments across jurisdictions while citing authoritative sources.

 

Each step refined the technology’s alignment with legal ethics and transparency, ensuring AI served practitioners and the public rather than replacing judgment or compromising trust.

The Power of a Unified Platform

On June 30, 2025, vLex-Fastcase joined Clio, the leading cloud practice-management platform used by more than two hundred thousand law firms. The combination couples the richest legal data set on earth with the workflow hub where lawyers manage their practice every day. Lawyers will research, draft, file, invoice, and communicate within a single, AI-enhanced environment that keeps human expertise in the loop.

For large firms, advanced analytics become part of daily decision-making. For solo attorneys and community clinics, sophisticated tools once reserved for elite practices arrive at accessible prices. Most importantly, individuals and small businesses who have historically faced legal problems without counsel gain new pathways to timely, affordable answers.

Expanding the Reach of Justice

The law is the operating system of society. Yet research shows that more than three-quarters of Americans facing legal issues do not hire a lawyer, and the gap is wider in many other countries. By weaving Fastcase’s AI, vLex’s global content, and Clio’s intuitive workflows into one platform, the new Clio vows to close that justice gap. Every precedent, statute, and regulation is being translated into actionable guidance, delivered in plain language, and verified by citations so trust remains intact.

An Aspirational Future

What began with three innovators and Spencer Trask & Co. now stands poised to reshape a trillion-dollar industry and, more importantly, empower billions of people to understand and use the law. Spencer Trask’s early belief in Fastcase set this mission in motion. Today that vision scales worldwide through Clio. The journey proves that when capital, technology, and purpose align, access to justice is not a distant ideal but an achievable reality waiting at the next click.

“None of this would have been possible without the early support and steadfast counsel of Spencer Trask & Co., the first and only institutional investor in Fastcase.” (July 2, 2025)

Ed Walters, Fastcase Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer, vLex

Spencer Trask Venture Good Measures Acquired by NationsBenefits, Bringing Personalized Nutrition to Millions

Pioneering Evidenced-Based Solutions in Healthcare and Nutrition

Spencer Trask & Co. discovers transformative ideas and helps make them practical, salable, and scalable to make a world of difference. Through two groundbreaking ventures—Health Dialog and Good Measures, LLC—the company has again demonstrated its ability to develop innovative solutions to systemic problems and create lasting impact.

 

Health Dialog: Pioneering the Evidence-Based Medicine Revolution

The journey toward evidence-based medicine began with Dr. Jack Wennberg’s research at Dartmouth, which revealed widespread variations in medical care that weren’t justified by patient outcomes. Spencer Trask & Co. responded by helping launch Health Dialog, designed to empower patients through evidence-based healthcare.

Under founder George Bennett’s leadership, Health Dialog transformed this research into up-to-date medical research made actionable through health coaches. As investor and director in both companies, Spencer Trask’s Kevin Kimberlin explains, “Health Dialog first commercialized what today is known as evidence-based medicine…creating a win-win-win for patients, providers, and insurers.” The results were remarkable: a $30 million investment yielded first a $170 million payout followed by a $770 million acquisition. 

This work significantly influenced the foundation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Peter Orszag, as “Health Care Czar” and head of the Office of Management and Budget, designed the ACA to leverage these insights, aiming to expand insurance access through savings generated by reducing unnecessary care variations. Since passage, the ACA has expanded healthcare insurance to 24 million Americans.

Good Measures, LLC: Evidence-Based Solutions for the Nutrition Crisis

The success of Health Dialog presented an opportunity to apply evidence-based principles to another critical health challenge – the misuse of food. With an estimated 43% of American adults being overweight and traditional interventions falling short, Good Measures emerged as a practical solution.The catalyst came through a powerful personal story. Stefany Shaheen, while managing four children under seven and Harvard Business School studies, watched her eight-year-old daughter struggle with Type 1 diabetes. “What used to be the simple step of pouring a bowl of cereal before school became an eight-step mathematical problem,” Shaheen recalls. “Measuring cereal, measuring milk, calculating carbohydrates, determining insulin dosage – and then often requiring additional insulin when blood sugars remain elevated.”

George Bennett recognized the parallel to Health Dialog’s mission. “We attacked the cause of the biggest healthcare problems in the U.S. — the nutritional imbalances that lead to chronic conditions that are a direct result of misunderstandings about and misuse of food,” he explains. Good Measures was the natural evolution of the Health Dialog model, combining mobile technology, clinical research on Food is Medicine with personal coaches for lasting behavior change.

Growing Impact

Good Measures’ patented nutrition technology and coaching platform is utilized by leading organizations such as: 

• Google’s moonshot precision health initiative, Verily
• Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare
• Centene, the 4th largest health insurer in the U.S.
• WellCare of Kentucky, the first health plan to launch GMI system wide
• Tufts University, where Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian leads the Food is Medicine Institute and serves on the President’s Council                                                         

The NationsBenefits Merger: Scaling National Impact

The acquisition of Good Measures by NationsBenefits marks a pivotal moment in healthcare transformation. NationsBenefits, serving over 100 healthcare providers and distributing more than 25 million meals annually, provides the perfect platform to scale Good Measures’ evidence-based approach. Integration with Instacart facilitates the delivery of medically tailored groceries directly to users’ homes.

Looking ahead, artificial intelligence will enhance the platform’s capabilities, providing personalized, real-time guidance to millions. AI avatars will help individuals make informed food choices, monitor health metrics, and stay motivated on their wellness journeys.

What began with one mother’s frustration over managing her daughter’s diabetes has evolved into a solution that can transform millions of similar struggles across America. As Stefany Shaheen reflects, “Partnering with Nations to supply food on a tremendous scale and then enhance that with our personalized recommendations, personalized food prescriptions, and connecting nutrition to the clinical coaching that people really can benefit from, is very exciting.”

A Complete Solution for Global Health

With the combination of personalized technology, national reach, and clinically proven coaching methods, Good Measures and NationsBenefits are positioned to help American families transform their daily food challenges into achievable steps toward lasting health. Spencer Trask & Co. continues its legacy of identifying transformative ideas and making them accessible to improve global health outcomes.

Read our full press announcement

Deal for Cash and Stock Organized by Oakley Capital.

Advanced technology development firm Spencer Trask & Co. today announced the merger of Fastcase with vLex in a transaction funded by private equity firms Bain Capital and Oakley Capital.  The new venture provides a combined 3.8 million users in over 100 countries with smart access to the most extensive collection of legal and regulatory information in the world.

Spencer Trask & Co. was the first institutional investor in Fastcase and its largest shareholder. “We’re really proud to see Fastcase take its mission to the global stage.” Spencer Trask & Co. Chairman, Kevin Kimberlin

The flagship Fastcase service extracts value from the entire corpus of U.S. law – from all 50 states, all Federal and appellate courts, the U.S. Code, the Federal Register from inception, and the Congressional Record volumes in their entirety. The firm provides highly accurate methods for researching these millions of pages of legal documents with predictive analytics and AI-enhanced smart tools. This provides analysis unavailable elsewhere such as case-prediction indicators on judges, venues, adversaries, and attorneys, and measures of gender diversity at law firms.

Revenues in the global legal services industry reached $900 billion in 2022 and yet the legal field has been slow to adopt technologies that are standard fare for financial, retail, and information service providers.

“Artificial intelligence and data analytics technology, used routinely elsewhere, will be demanded by discerning legal clients in the future,” said Ed Walters, Fastcase co-founder and CEO. “So Fastcase combined these must-have analytics with the largest law library in the world.”

For its technology backbone, Fastcase acquired legal search firm Judicata, funded by Khosla Ventures and Peter Thiel, and run by Blake Masters, now COO of Thiel Ventures. The Judicata senior team remained with Fastcase.

“From the beginning, Spencer Trask supported our mission to democratize the law in the United States.  vLex is the perfect partner to scale this mission globally,” concluded Walters.

WeWorking the System

By Bill Clifford — CEO, Spencer Trask & Co.

Several weeks have passed since a spoiled millennial from the Silicon Valley has been exposed as one of the most prolific con men of the 21st Century. Sam Bankman-Fried (aka SBF) has allegedly perpetrated one of the costliest frauds in the history of the financial markets and duped his investors and clients out of tens of billions of dollars. The ex-CEO was scheduled to testify today as a “witness” before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services but was arrested late Monday afternoon in the Bahamas at the request of the U.S. government. The Committee has begun its investigation of the events that led up to the implosion of the crypto exchange FTX and its filing for bankruptcy last month.

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To recap: A man in his mid 20’s chased untold wealth when starting a cryptocurrency hedge fund called Alameda Research (Alameda) in 2017. He began making money hand over fist — so much so that he became a highly influential figure in the crypto world. He then founded a crypto trading exchange called FTX in 2019, backed by the biggest names in Venture Capital. His close association with Alameda and the discovery of transfers of large sums of money to Alameda, which were allegedly lost in high risk trades, caused FTX to be caught short when investors sought redemption earlier this year. Now he’s peddling canned mea culpas via press interviews while confessing to making some rookie mistakes and pleading ignorance and seeking forgiveness. Welcome to the SBF apology tour.

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Ultimately, a failed acquisition to purchase FTX’s non-U.S. businesses by early investor and eventual competitor Binance would prove SBF’s final undoing. Binance backed out of the “Hail Mary’’ deal on Nov. 9, 2022 after a brief period of corporate due diligence and examination of FTX financials. This led to FTX’s bankruptcy declaration on Nov. 11, 2022, the resignation of SBF as CEO, and the appointment of a caretaker CEO designed to recover as much cash as possible for investors and clients. While SBF initially fled the U.S. for the Bahamas in Sep. 2021, reportedly citing a more favorable regulatory environment, one could posit his move was also a tactic to avoid forthcoming prosecution. His net worth would plummet from $72B to $100,000 as FTX valuation fell to zero. Gone are the goals of Benevolent Altruism he so proudly espoused when making money so easy in the early days of FTX.

There is no denying that SBF is intelligent. Many have commented on his ability to conduct a potential investor call while at the same time playing the League of Legends video game. I’m sure his MIT degree in Physics prepared him appropriately for the many vectors associated with market ups, downs and tangents. However, in my view, the scruffy hair, wrinkled tee shirts and ever-present cargo shorts was a facade to project that SBF was simply “too cool for school” to be bothered to care about his personal appearance, which likely distracted from his incompetence in business.

After starting cryptocurrency trading firm Alameda with great success, SBF was making obscene amounts of money in Crypto trading. So much so that he became a notable and significant donor in the 2020 Presidential elections, contributing $5.2M to the campaign of Joe Biden alone. According to SBF, he gave liberally to both parties, so much so that at nearly $40M he was the second largest contributor to Democrat politicians for the 2022 midterm elections — second only to George Soros. He contends that his contributions to Republican causes are not as well publicized because they would not be well received by his Democrat friends or his parents. Also noteworthy is the fact that his mother is the president of a California-based left wing PAC called Mind the Gap that raised $140M for Democrat causes.

That $40M in political donations to Democrats may be the smartest investment SBF ever made since it may be the one that proves the age old theorem — “never bite the hand that feeds you!” How could Maxine Waters come down hard on SBF? There are hundreds of photos in circulation with her arms wrapped around his waist, smiling from ear to ear after SBF tickled her campaign coffers with a nice contribution during the last election cycle. In all fairness, shouldn’t she and Joe Biden and all the other recipients of these ill-gotten campaign contributions return these funds to the new caretakers of the FTX asset holder so that they can be returned to the investors and clients who were defrauded of their investments as a result of SBF’s actions? It seems the ethical thing to do.

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The FTX collapse is what happens when entitled children are allowed too much power with little to no oversight by the supposed adults in the room.

As this unseemly “drama” continues to play out in the weeks and months ahead, I expect a plethora of Federal indictments coming down the pike. Only time will tell whether financial regulators will act justly to ensure that people never again lose their life savings at the hands of these hype men and schemers.

Theranos — From Industry Darling to Dead Unicorn

By Bill Clifford — CEO, Spencer Trask & Co.

This is the first of a series focused on unicorns whose tusks were shorn once investors and journalists exposed egregious operational malfeasances of messianic leaders who were peddling what turned out to be nothing more than a vision wrapped up in emotion and ‘hot air.’

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When faced with the opportunity of investing in the next transformative business model, it seems that all rationality, logic and reason often goes out the window, and blind passion and irrationality are all that is left in the minds of investors and prospective buyers. Such has been the case with WeWork, Theranos, and Uber, all of which became major news stories and whose cautionary tales were dramatized on various streaming platforms. Each of these companies had novel approaches for penetrating a multibillion-dollar marketplace that was ripe for the taking, and all they required was a few million dollars from investors to launch their new enterprises.

While all three companies operated in completely different markets with completely different business models, there are striking similarities between each from which lessons can and should be learned by the investor community. All of these companies were founded and led by individuals who very much fit the messianic model.

Theranos was led by Elizabeth Holmes, who fashioned herself as the second coming of Steve Jobs. Jobs had his Lisa, Holmes had her Edison machine — only Jobs’ Lisa actually worked. Investors love a good Cinderella story and they certainly had one with Holmes. Jobs dropped out of college — Holmes dropped out of Stanford. You can’t convince me that a smart, charismatic woman peddling a transformative business model that was poised to shake up the multi-billion-dollar blood testing industry wasn’t going to get an audience with Silicon Valley’s most elite investors whenever she wanted. Investors such as Larry Ellison and Tim Draper both became early investors in Theranos.

When Theranos needed credibility Holmes went out and recruited high-profile public figures to join the company’s Board of Directors, including former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz. (The latter of which would come back to back to bite the company as Shultz’s grandson became a whistleblower.) But the company plugged away, winning a major contract with Walgreens for in-store deployment of its Edison on-site blood testing device. At one point Theranos was valued at $9 Billion, making Elizabeth Holmes one of the richest women in America. The company maintained a veil of secrecy around everything related to its R&D, requiring tight NDAs from employees and disclosing little or nothing to anyone trying to dig deeper into the mysteries of the Edison machines inner workings. This should should have been a huge red flag to all involved.

The cracks in the foundation were beginning to get wider and deeper as investigative journalists probed into the science behind the Edison machine and its various degrees of testing and certification — only to find it lacking in both. As the FDA began to crack down on Theranos and impose constraints on Elizabeth Holmes’ ability to conduct business in the blood testing industry, she was forced to resign as CEO and the business was dissolved in 2016. Her net worth went from over $4.5 billion to essentially zero, and she has subsequently been convicted of four counts of fraud and is awaiting sentencing.

Her partner in crime at Theranos, Ramesh Balwani, has recently been convicted on all 12 counts of fraud and is awaiting sentencing. It is expected that both Holmes and Balwami will serve jail time. Are there any lessons to be learned by the investing community from the Theranos story, and will they take them to heart? You bet.

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The Theranos story is a case study for letting the fundamentals of investing get out of hand too long before the proper due diligence is completed. And for the follow-on investors: Did they just assume that early investors did the due diligence for them? It is clear to me that the company created an atmosphere of privacy and secrecy for a very specific purpose; it didn’t want anyone to know that there wasn’t anything in the Edison machine but fairy dust. The addition of the big-name government and military officials to the Board was done purposefully — they brought status and credibility, and possibly contacts with prospective sales, but they didn’t know anything about blood virology so they couldn’t ask any questions about the science of the company and, in lieu of that rigorous due diligence, took what Elizabeth Holmes fed them as gospel. It was all a con — from the start. Investors lost a lot of money on Theranos — some of it venture money, some of it family office money — all of it gone with no recovery and no residual. Will those investors learn anything from this debacle — it’s hard to say. Despite losing over $100M, the venture players in this saga are not likely to stop playing unicorn-maker any time soon. Will they check and double check the technology before dumping money into a company? They say they will, but if the competition is knocking on the door with a $100M check at the same or better terms and the deadline is fast approaching, oftentimes due diligence gets short shrift in favor of a few discount points and Board seats.

Do I think that Theranos will be the last fraud debacle that we will see in the $5B and up range? No. There are probably two or three others percolating right now that we haven’t heard of, whose bubbles haven’t yet burst, and are just waiting to set the market ablaze with stories of how close they were to upsetting a multi-billion-dollar market with a new, breakthrough business model or technology. Buyer beware.