Lighthouse eDiscovery, a Seattle-based company that provides electronic discovery products to help lawyers quickly sift through mountains of complex documentation, has merged with San Francisco-based Discovia.
The addition of Discovia, an electronic discovery company focused litigation and investigations, makes the combined firm the largest in the industry, Lighthouse said. Prior to the acquisition, Lighthouse had approximately 180 employees. The combined company will employ about 300 people, and will be led by Lighthouse CEO Brian McManus.
“When presented with the opportunity to add an organization that was expanding quickly and organically similar to us, we knew we had to take a second look,” McManus said. “We soon discovered that Discovia shared our core values and client-focused approach to service and quality, and had a client base that was complementary to ours. Although we could have each continued with our own growth trajectories, we realized that we had found an ideal partner in Discovia and that together we could add depth and breadth to our service offerings and client-facing teams to further benefit both client bases.”
Spire Capital, which invested $30 million in Lighthouse in 2015, led the acquisition, along with management and other investors. National investment bank MHT Partners represented Discovia.
Lighthouse started 22 years ago, copying and scanning paper-based legal documents so they could be searched electronically. It now provides electronic discovery products to some of the biggest law firms in the country as well as huge corporate legal departments at companies such as Google, GE, Microsoft, Cisco and Starbucks.
