On the TechTO & TechVancouver stages ×3
The Unfiltered Story of Clio
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Jack Newton of Clio presents Running a Great Beta Program
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The Cold Email That Started a $2B+ Company | Boast Funding Stage TTW 2026
Watch on YouTube ↗First seen on the TechTO & TechVancouver stages in 2016. Every talk is searchable — ask the archive about Jack ↗
In their words
The audacious thing we said in 2008 — that I think rings true today — is: your data is safer in our cloud than it is in your on-premise system.
Lawyers will never store their data in the cloud, you will die on this hill — or, the legal TAM is so small you will never build a $100 million ARR business here. Those were the two common refrains we heard from VCs at that time.
We see AI as being a huge enabling technology for lawyers that will increase the amount of demand for legal services, because AI will increase the accessibility of legal services.
if you make your product work for one customer you'll find a way to make it work for 10 customers you'll find a way to make it work for 100 customers
I don't think lawyers are the problem here. I think the people making all the shitty software for lawyers are the problem.
Even if you are tackling an industry that has supposedly high barriers to entry or resistance to change, if you build the right product and have good product market fit, you can see adoption even when you've maybe looked at a bunch of predecessors that have failed.
Canadian investors almost expected a hometown discount rather than being ready to pay a premium because they know you better and they've got more information.
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Quick answers
How did Jack Newton come up with Clio?
In 2007, convinced the cloud would transform every industry, he called Rian Gauvreau — his best friend since grade three in Edmonton, then IT manager at the law firm Gowlings. Rian saw lawyers stuck with bad software, so they targeted solo and small-firm lawyers (80% of the market), shipped a beta in March 2008, and launched that October.
How did Clio raise its first million dollars?
During the 2008–09 financial crisis, after hundreds of VC nos, German angel Christoph Janz — fresh off selling Pageflakes and an early Zendesk investor — cold-emailed info@goclio.com. Google's spam filter buried it for two weeks until Rian checked his spam folder. Newton and Gauvreau flew to Berlin to close their first million, having already maxed credit cards and remortgaged Newton's house.
How big is Clio now and where is it going?
At the talk Newton pegged Clio at about US$300 million ARR, with $1 billion as the next milestone, after a $900-million Series F at a $3-billion valuation — which he called the largest transaction in Canadian fundraising history. Now multi-product, Clio wants to be the operating system for legal work; Newton argues AI will grow demand for lawyers, since 77% of legal needs currently go unmet.