While other parts of the enterprise are becoming increasingly automated, many legal departments still handle the administrative work involved in day-to-day operations manually. Ironclad Inc. is working to change that one contract at a time.

The San Francisco-based startup’s efforts are supported by a newly closed $8 million funding round that was led by venture capital giant Accel. Ironclad sells a cloud-based platform for managing contracts that aims to significantly reduce the number of steps involved in preparing an agreement.

When a legal professional uploads a draft to the service, its built-in artificial intelligence will point out potential structural errors and offer change recommendations. Ironclad then provides the ability to create a workflow for securing any approvals that may be needed from higher-ups. According to the startup, users can notify the relevant parties directly through the interface and have reminders sent out automatically until they respond.

These features are accessible for personnel outside the legal department as well thanks to a templating feature. It allows companies to create readymade contracts that require only a minimal amount of customization. As a result, deals can in many cases be pushed through faster while legal personnel are freed up for other tasks.

Rounding out the platform are several features designed to help manage contracts after they’ve been signed. The platform automatically extracts the key details of each document in a format that is easily accessible by other applications, while an archiving capability provides the ability to store important agreements for extended periods of time.

Ironclad has been adopted by GoFundMe Inc., Glassdoor Inc. and hundreds of other companies since launching two years ago. The startup is gaining momentum despite the fact that it competes in a heavily crowded market against deeply entrenched players such as Oracle Corp.

This market is also coming under pressure from newer providers that are working to ease specific aspects of the document lifecycle. Electronic signature provider HelloSign Inc. is one of the newest entrants. It recently launched a service that can make the information in a contract or form accessible to back-office applications without requiring any manual data extraction.

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