Agiloft is a contract lifecycle management (CLM) software platform that helps organizations streamline their contract processes. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Agiloft CEO Eric Laughlin to gain a deeper understanding of the company.
Eric Laughlin’s Background
What is Eric Laughlin’s background? Laughlin said:
“I grew up in Kansas City, where my parents ran a small family business. From a young age, I had opportunities to get involved, whether it was helping with inventory or other tasks. What really stood out to me during that time was the strong sense of community, the family atmosphere, and the genuine care for each other. It was this experience that shaped my understanding of company culture—how important it is to foster an environment where people truly feel connected and valued.”
“Professionally, I started my career in consulting at Parthenon Group, which later became part of Ernst & Young. Thomson Reuters (Thomson West at the time) was my most significant client, and that relationship ultimately played a key role in the direction my career took. During that time, I had the opportunity to meet key executives and work on strategic projects that laid the foundation for my future roles.”
“I also spent some time in the startup world during the dot-com boom, where I was involved in business development. It was an exciting but brief experience that taught me a lot about the rapid pace and volatility of the tech industry. After that, I pursued an MBA, with a clear goal of becoming a CEO. I thought the best path to get there would be through general management experiences, so I joined the consumer-packaged goods (CPG) sector. I had offers from companies like Quaker, but ultimately chose to work at 3M. While it was a valuable learning experience, I came to realize that 3M wasn’t the best fit for my long-term career goals.”
“After that, I returned to Thomson Reuters, where my career really took off. I led the division ‘Corporates,’ which provided legal information, software, and services to in-house legal departments. At the time that business was small but fast growing, aided by key acquisitions and organic growth. This role was a turning point for me, particularly because I went from managing a small team to overseeing 1,500 employees almost overnight. It was a steep learning curve, but it taught me the importance of shifting from technical expertise to people-focused leadership. That experience, in particular, had a lasting impact on my approach to leadership and management.”
“Today, 5 years in as CEO of Agiloft, I focus on the core belief that Ex = Cx – the employee experience equals the customer experience. I believe that creating a company culture that focuses on supporting individuals in all aspects of their lives is a winning strategy – it enables them to perform to their potential and to in turn support our customers more completely. The journey from my family business roots to leading a tech company has been a fascinating one, but the core lesson I’ve carried with me is the value of strong, positive culture and the role it plays in driving success.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Laughlin explained:
“I’m really proud of how our solutions help organizations unlock the value of contract data and accelerate their businesses. Our Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) platform – the Agiloft Data-first Agreement Platform – is at the heart of what we do. Our platform makes it easy for teams to manage contracts from start to finish—drafting, reviewing, negotiating, approving, and renewing—without the time-consuming hassle. But we don’t stop there. We also offer fully white box AI capabilities, including customizable AI-enhanced workflow features, that allow legal and contracting teams to move faster and make smarter decisions.”
“As our flagship product, it’s designed to automate and optimize the entire contract lifecycle—from request and creation to negotiation, execution, and renewal. We include capabilities like AI-powered contract analysis for risk identification and insights; no-code customization; automated approvals and workflows to improve efficiency; integration capabilities with platforms like Salesforce, Microsoft 365, DocuSign, and more; and advanced reporting and analytics. It’s a force multiplier that helps customers reach agreements quickly and collaboratively, and uses data to run a smarter, more transparent business. Fun fact: over 97% of our customers renew every year, a retention rate that tells us our customers are getting more value every year!”
“Also worth mentioning is our Integration Hub, which is an embedded drag-and-drop interface that connects the CLM platform to over a thousand business systems to boost adoption and turbo-charge ROI. It liberates data for everyone to use!”
Evolution Of The Company’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Laughlin noted:
“At the core of the Agiloft solution is a robust business process management platform. Unlike other Contracting solutions, we built the platform first and continually refine the agile CLM solution built on top of that platform. That allows us to evolve our offering quickly, and for our customers to make adjustments as their business changes.”
“The biggest complement to that platform has been our investment in AI. We believe strongly in the power of AI to improve efficiency and to unlock insights from the data that comes into the CLM tool. Among other things, it helps make sense of the unstructured data in a contract, helps to flag, and allows legal teams to quickly understand what is in their contracts.”
“We’ve taken a two-prong approach to applying AI. The first is that our team builds elegant AI-based solutions to the most common workflows that all of our customers need. The second is that we provide innovation workbenches so that customers with novel ideas or concerns can adapt the AI models or write novel prompts to solve interesting problems. We believe that handing the tools to our customers is the best way to innovate with speed and collective creativity.”
Significant Milestones
Any significant milestones? Laughlin cited:
“In January 2025, Agiloft acquired Screens, the world’s first standards-based and community-supported Generative AI contract review and redlining solution. Because redlining digital contracts is such a complex, time-consuming, and inefficient process, the powerful combination of Agiloft and Screens’ AI capabilities and data-driven solutions will help legal teams consistently review and mark up documents faster than ever before.”
“This strategic acquisition will enhance Agiloft’s Data-first Agreement Platform and contract management capabilities, by standardizing the contract review process, promoting consistency, and unlocking the value of contract data with the collective expertise of a global community of legal professionals.”
“In May of 2024, leading global investment firm KKR acquired a majority stake in Agiloft. As part of the transaction FTV Capital, a sector-focused growth equity firm and an existing investor in Agiloft, made an additional investment in the Company, and JMI Equity, a growth equity firm focused on investing in leading software companies, joined as a new investor in Agiloft.”
Customer Success Stories
When asking Laughlin about customer success stories, he highlighted:
“I’ll share how a national leader in outstanding patient care, education, research, and community partnerships, RUSH, tackled some major challenges in their procure-to-pay process with the help of Agiloft. They were facing issues with inconsistent procedures, slow contract processing, and no centralized way to manage contracts, making it difficult to track obligations, manage budgets, and ensure compliance. By implementing Agiloft, the procurement team was able to streamline workflows, cutting the contract processing time from 70 days down to less than 30. They gained better visibility and control over contract obligations, and the legal team could focus on more complex contracts while procurement handled the simpler ones. This transformation led to a 20% reduction in new purchase orders, an 80% reduction in vendor payments bypassing the system, and an overall more efficient and responsive contracting process.”
“I’ve seen firsthand how much of a game-changer Agiloft has been for RUSH. It’s not just about saving time; it’s about creating a culture of accountability and transparency across the organization. The ability to adapt the Agiloft system as customer needs evolve has been incredibly important, especially in a healthcare environment like theirs, where processes and regulations are always shifting. I’m proud to see how Agiloft has empowered their team to take control of the process, ensuring that RUSH is now operating with greater efficiency and is better positioned for long-term success. It’s been incredibly rewarding to see how this solution has transformed the way they do business and how much smoother everything is running now.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Laughlin assessed:
“The CLM movement has been quite a ride and will continue to be an ever-growing market. The expected TAM for CLM is projected to grow from $1.11 billion in 2022 to around $3.69 billion by 2032, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.33%. That said, we’re focused on a significant and growing market that spans multiple industries. While we continue to assess and evolve our target segments, our solutions are designed to scale and address the needs of a broad range of potential customers.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Laughlin affirmed:
“We stand out for a few reasons – one is our commitment to customer support and the fact that we truly listen to customer pain points. We take the time to interact with our customers – in a very real, human-centric way – to shape and iterate our platform depending on their needs. And again, if you can create a strong culture and great employee experience, your customers will, in turn, feel it as well. They’ll get better service, and because of that, we can ensure a great experience that leads to high performance and success.”
“Two, the flexibility and customizability within our CLM platform is unmatched. We enable our customers to implement contract management with agility. And agility is crucial; it’s in our name. When change happens fast – when you make a policy decision, for example – you need to be able to communicate this throughout contracts.”
“The third differentiator I want to mention is straightforward, but an important distinction, nonetheless. Contract management requires specialized expertise – and that’s what we represent. Agiloft is a best-in-breed contract management platform that can integrate with enterprise software to manage the entire lifecycle of a contract.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future goals? Laughlin emphasized:
“As a high growth company, sustainable growth is always top of mind. We want to be the most valuable CLM for our customers, partners, employees, and our investors. And this isn’t to say we have to be the fastest growing or the biggest provider; we want to focus on ultimate value and impact.”
“We’re also committed to providing our customers within legal, sales, procurement, and finance the best possible experience through expert-crafted AI solutions. Of course, AI is everywhere (and at this point, if you’re not adopting, you’re falling behind); but for us, this means making sure that we do a great job of understanding the key use cases for AI and implementing them within our product, as well as giving customers access to configurable AI capabilities for their own novel use cases.”
Additional Thoughts
Any other topics you would like to discuss? Laughlin concluded:
“We recently expanded Agiloft’s product suite with new generative AI capabilities to enable legal teams to unlock the value of contract data and accelerate their business. Through our AI Platform, users are able to tailor AI-driven workflows to the exact needs of their legal and contracting teams, empowering organizations to deploy AI in a way that precisely meets their needs.”
“What’s more, Agiloft’s “AI Your Way” initiative allows customers to tailor AI-powered workflows to fit their specific needs. With the addition of these capabilities and the ability to streamline clause management within GenAI Prompt Lab (enhanced by the recent acquisition of Screens), Agiloft’s AI capabilities empower legal teams to streamline operations, automate manual tasks, and leverage intelligent data-rich insights from contracts at scale.”
