Streamline AI Raises $8.6M Series A to Move Legal Teams Off Spreadsheets

In the legal department at DoorDash during its hypergrowth years, requests came in from every direction: sales, HR, compliance, all competing for attention. Kathy Zhu, then a commercial counsel at the company, found herself navigating an unscalable system of email threads and spreadsheets to keep track of it all. The pace was relentless, and the tools didn’t keep up.

That experience led Zhu to co-found Streamline AI, a legal operations platform aimed at fixing what she calls a “crippling” lack of infrastructure inside in-house legal teams. Alongside Google product alum Julian Wimbush, Zhu set out to build software that would automate intake, triage, and internal workflows, removing the bottlenecks she once faced.

The company recently raised an $8.6 million Series A, bringing its total funding to $14 million. Investors include Blumberg Capital, Tribeca Venture Partners, Acronym Venture Capital, and others. Streamline AI says it now supports over 500 in-house lawyers across customers such as Gusto, Acorns, and Bloom Energy.

Building Infrastructure for In-House Legal Teams

Zhu’s founding insight came while scaling the legal function at DoorDash during its rapid pandemic-era growth. As internal demand surged, the legal team’s intake process which is largely dependent on emails, spreadsheets, and informal requests became a bottleneck.