University of Bristolʼs Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship partners with Genie AI to provide free legal contracts for next generation of entrepreneurs
The University of Bristolʼs multi-award-winning Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship has announced a partnership with Genie AI, the UKʼs largest open-source legal library, to provide students with free access to legal templates and clauses.
The partnership aims to empower the next generation of entrepreneurs with all the legal contracts they need to start and grow a business.
Bristol has a thriving startup ecosystem, with the city having the greatest number of high-growth technology companies in the South West of England.
Bristolʼs Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship supports future founders to build their business ideas and begin their entrepreneur journey via an Integrated Masters Degree for undergraduates or Masters Degree for postgraduates.
Students from varied academic backgrounds bring together their knowledge and passion to identify social and commercial opportunities, with the Centre supporting hundreds of entrepreneurs to date.
Notable among them are Welleasy, a healthy snacks business, Peequal, reducing womenʼs queuing at festivals, Kaedim, technology to render 3d models from 2d images and Vive, pioneering mental wellbeing through visualisation.
As part of the startup journey, founders need a range of legal contracts, from founder and collaboration agreements to patent assignments and term sheets.
With Genie AI, users can find, draft, edit and sign legally-sound contracts in minutes. Genie AIʼs legal template library will be accessible to all Centre students, cutting an average of £30,000 in legal costs in the run-up to their Series A funding round.
As part of the partnership, Genie AI team members will also provide mentoring as part of the Centre for Innovationsʼ new Runway project.
Mark Neild, programme director for Runway – where student start-ups take flight at The Centre for Innovation, said: “Our job at Runway is to empower student ventures to have maximum impact.
"Start-ups never have enough resources and legal support is expensive and often takes a back seat to getting customers. But this can then come back to bite.
"Genie AI has brought the cost and effort down to zero for my students to get open-source templates, data and insights, which will empower future founders with the confidence they need to sign deals knowing they will not be taken for a ride.”
Rafie Faruq, Genie AI CEO, added: “Our partnership with the Centre for Innovation and Excellence is part of our long-term plan to give back to UKʼs most innovative universities, as we span out of UCLʼs artificial intelligence lab.
"This partnership adds to the ongoing collaborations we have with Imperial College and Oxford University.
"Deep technology takes years to build, and we would like to contribute by significantly reducing the legal cost burden for the next generation of startup entrepreneurs.”
Alex Asher, University of Bristol graduate and co-founder of mifu shared: “We found an abundance of confusing and expensive legal offers out there when starting mifu, an AI powered digital marketing start-up.
"We are delighted that Runway will provide more legal support via Genie AI.
"This will greatly simplify the process of sourcing our legal early-stage venture frameworks and help us move forward with more confidence and one less cost."
