Ontra

Ontra is a provider of AI-powered contract automation solutions tailored for the private markets industry. Their flagship product, Synapse, leverages OpenAI's GPT-4 language model to streamline critical legal workflows across the entire fund lifecycle, from fundraising and investing to compliance and operations.

Synapse combines cutting-edge machine learning models with a global network of experienced lawyers to automate routine yet critical processes like contract negotiations and document review. This enables private equity firms, investment banks, and other financial institutions to save time, reduce risk, and close deals faster.

At the core of Ontra's offering is a customer-specific "negotiation playbook" developed in collaboration with their account managers. This playbook encapsulates the client's preferences, fallback positions, and guidelines for handling various contractual terms and scenarios. Leveraging this playbook, Ontra's legal network executes contract negotiations swiftly and consistently on behalf of the client.

Synapse plays a pivotal role in accelerating contract reviews, utilizing its proprietary language model trained on over 800,000 private capital contracts. It suggests revisions based on previous similar documents, generates comparisons between old and new versions, and unifies markups from multiple legal parties representing the same client. This AI-powered markup generation, coupled with the expertise of Ontra's legal professionals, enables the company to deliver high-quality contract reviews.

Upon completion of negotiations, Ontra provides AI-generated summaries highlighting key terms, allowing clients to quickly retrieve and reference contract information without wading through legalese. The company also offers trend reports, analyzing deviations from standard terms across their client base.

Key customers and partnerships

Ontra counts several prominent players in the private equity and investment banking sectors among its clientele. Notably, Blackstone, a leading investment firm, has been utilizing Ontra's services to streamline their NDA negotiations and accelerate deal closures. A Blackstone employee featured in one of the articles stated that Ontra's standardized process and efficient turnaround have enabled their deal teams to focus on core tasks like due diligence and fostering relationships with founders and management teams.