Latham & Watkins Advises Exa in US$85 Million Series B Financing With Benchmark and Lightspeed

Exa announced an US$85 million Series B financing round to build the search engine for AI, led by Benchmark (and the legendary Peter Fenton) at a US$700 million valuation, with participation from Lightspeed, Y Combinator, and NVentures, NVIDIA's venture capital arm. Exa serves web search to thousands of companies, including AI startups and top private equity and consulting firms, with a state-of-the-art search engine designed for AI applications.

Latham & Watkins LLP advised Exa with a corporate team led by New York partner Eli Curi, with associates Mik Bushinski and Tess Winston. Advice was also provided on intellectual property matters by Los Angeles partner Ghaith Mahmood, with associate Azzam Chaudhry; on data privacy and cybersecurity matters by San Diego/Bay Area counsel Jennifer Howes and Houston/Austin partner Robert Brown; and on copyright matters by Washington, D.C. partner Elana Nightingale Dawson.