Gaius-Lex Raises PLN 1.85M to Bring Secure Legal AI to Europe
Category: LegalTech / AI / VC Tags: LegalTech, AI, Venture Capital
Digital Ocean Ventures and Angel Investor Vladyslav Muzhylivskyi Back Gaius-Lex with PLN 1.85M to Build Privacy-First AI for Lawyers
Gaius-Lex, a Polish startup pioneering secure, on-premise AI for lawyers and tax advisors, has raised PLN 1.85 million (approx. EUR 430,000) in early-stage funding. The round was led by Digital Ocean Ventures Starter — a fund co-financed by the EU’s FENG program — alongside experienced angel investor Vladyslav Muzhylivskyi, who brings domain knowledge and a track record of scaling enterprise SaaS products across Europe.
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Unlike cloud-based tools like ChatGPT, Gaius-Lex offers a self-hosted AI assistant powered by lightweight sLLMs (small large language models) that run directly on clients’ infrastructure — or on dedicated secure servers. This architecture allows law firms to adopt AI tools without ever sending data to external systems, crucial for maintaining confidentiality, GDPR compliance, and client trust.
The startup solves a mounting problem: lawyers in 2025 still rely on manual workflows — searching PDFs, cross-referencing rulings, pasting citations into Word documents. Why? Because most AI models are disqualified by privacy, data protection, or security policies. Gaius-Lex sidesteps this by operating entirely offline, offering productivity boosts without the regulatory trade-offs.
“Lawyers don’t want a shiny AI chatbot. They want a tool that speaks legal language, works with their documents, and doesn’t risk breaching confidentiality,” said Paweł Kulig, CEO of Gaius-Lex. “That’s what we built.”
The startup has already onboarded 40+ paying customers — without a sales team — by working hand-in-hand with legal departments and small firms. Its AI assists with legal research, case law comparisons, opinion drafting, and regulatory reviews, while leaving lawyers fully in control.
The Backers: Why They Bet on Gaius-Lex
Digital Ocean Ventures, part of a select group of VCs deploying FENG-backed capital into deeptech, praised the startup for addressing an urgent pain point with a scalable, secure solution.
“Gaius-Lex isn’t just a clever idea — it’s running, installed, and solving problems in the real world,” said a fund partner. “They understand lawyers, and built around their real concerns: privacy, trust, and precision.”
Joining the round is Vladyslav Muzhylivskyi, a business angel with operational experience in scaling B2B startups and a focus on privacy-centric technologies. His role will go beyond capital — providing go-to-market support, enterprise network access, and technical guidance.
“We see Gaius-Lex as part of a broader shift where AI becomes embedded, compliant, and domain-specific. This team nailed all three,” he noted.
What’s Next
The new capital will be used to deepen model development, expand to neighboring legal jurisdictions, and launch integrations with enterprise systems. In the longer term, Gaius-Lex aims to become the privacy-preserving AI layer for legal departments across the EU.
Test it yourself: https://ai.gaius-lex.pl/
