Noah Waisberg on Selling Kira, Starting Zuva, and Fixing the Pain of M&A for Sellers

# Overview

# How the sale led to a new company As part of the sale to Litera, Waisberg retained a copy of the Kira technology and roughly 30 of Kira's approximately 180 employees. Those assets became the foundation of Zuva. The lived experience of selling a company shaped his approach: he looked for the parts of the process that caused the most friction for sellers and designed products and services to address them.

# Product focus: sell-side M&A pain points Waisberg and his team interviewed about 200 dealmakers to pinpoint sellers' biggest headaches during a sale. Two problems stood out: managing an overwhelming number of bidder questions and the high cost and variability of traditional Big Law diligence support. Zuva built:

• Software to intake, triage, and manage bidder questions so sellers can respond more efficiently.
• A tech-enabled diligence service that pairs Kira's contract-analysis AI with experienced former Big Law associates to produce deliverables sellers need for diligence.

Zuva positions this offering as delivering work comparable to Big Law at a materially lower cost by combining automation with experienced human reviewers.

# Business model and competitive context

Waisberg also referenced recent shifts in the legal-tech landscape. He recorded the conversation the day a rival, Harvey, announced a major funding round and discussed how players like Harvey and Legora compare with frontier labs. He has remarked that the market has reached "peak legal tech," and highlighted limitations in current AI approaches that the market may underestimate. He sees the billable hour as the single biggest structural obstacle to broader adoption of efficiency technologies in legal work.

# Timing and constraints Waisberg noted that his post-sale restrictions recently expired, clearing the way for Zuva to pursue opportunities that might previously have been limited by noncompete or similar terms. He was last on the LawNext podcast in 2021 when Kira celebrated its 10th anniversary and he released his book, AI for Lawyers.

# What Zuva offers sellers now The combined offering targets sellers who need to move through diligence more quickly and with lower legal spend while still delivering the level of analysis expected by sophisticated buyers. The twin elements are automation to handle volume and skilled reviewers to ensure legal quality.

# Bottom line Zuva is the product of a founder who experienced the strain of selling a company and decided to address it directly. By reusing tried contract-analysis tech and adding a service layer staffed by former Big Law associates, Zuva aims to reduce cost and friction for sellers navigating M&A diligence.