The legal industry is at an inflection point. For decades, litigators have relied on informal networks, costly manual research, and fragmented data to understand how individual judges think and rule. These methods are time-consuming and incomplete, and in high-stakes cases, the cost of being unprepared is enormous. While many legal tech tools focus on automating routine tasks, few offer a true strategic edge in the courtroom.
That’s where Bench IQ comes in.
Bench IQ is an AI-powered judicial intelligence platform designed to help lawyers anticipate judicial reasoning, starting with federal U.S. judges. By harnessing frontier AI, the platform transforms vast amounts of unstructured legal data into structured, actionable intelligence that sharpens litigation strategy from day one.
Founded by Jimoh Ovbiagele, a repeat Inovia founder and co-founder of ROSS Intelligence, one of the first companies to bring AI to legal research, Bench IQ combines deep domain expertise with technical excellence. Jimoh is joined by Jeffrey Gettleman (former Partner at Kirkland & Ellis) and Maxim Isakov (ROSS’s founding engineer), a team uniquely positioned to tackle one of litigation’s most persistent challenges.
In under a year, Bench IQ has secured contracts with several AmLaw 200 firms, including four of the top five. These firms aren’t just testing Bench IQ, they’re embedding it into active cases. Today, we’re excited to announce that Inovia has co-led Bench IQ’s $5.3M seed financing alongside Battery Ventures, with continued participation from Maple VC and Haystack. We’re proud to back Jimoh again as he and the team scale Bench IQ beyond federal U.S. cases into other litigation arenas, reshaping how legal strategy is built in the age of AI.