Qualcomm just placed a strategic bet on the future of privacy-first enterprise AI. The chipmaker's venture arm poured $8 million into SpotDraft, a legal tech startup building contract review tools that run entirely on-device - no cloud required. The Series B extension nearly doubles SpotDraft's valuation to $380 million, up from $190 million just 11 months ago, as regulated industries rush to adopt AI without exposing sensitive documents to external servers.
SpotDraft just landed an $8 million check from Qualcomm Ventures that validates a fundamental shift in how enterprises think about AI deployment. While most companies still route sensitive documents through cloud-based AI models, SpotDraft is betting that regulated industries - especially legal, defense, and pharma - will demand tools that keep contracts and privileged information locked down on local hardware.
The strategic investment, announced as a Series B extension, values the legal tech startup at around $380 million according to TechCrunch. That's nearly double the $190 million post-money valuation SpotDraft commanded after closing its $56 million Series B in February 2025. In less than a year, the company has proven that enterprise buyers will pay for AI that doesn't phone home.
"The future of how enterprise AI is going to be - right now, there's got to be AI that is close to the document, which is privacy critical, latency sensitive, and legally sensitive, and those are the things that will move on device," SpotDraft co-founder and CEO Shashank Bijapur told TechCrunch.
The timing reflects mounting anxiety about GenAI in professional services. Industry research from consistently flags data security and privacy as the top barriers to AI adoption in legal and regulated sectors, where contracts often contain intellectual property, pricing strategies, and deal terms that can't legally leave the organization's infrastructure. SpotDraft's answer: run the entire AI workflow locally.
