Tanguy Chau, an engineer with a master’s degree, PhD and MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was an entrepreneur and venture capitalist early in his career. In looking for interesting investment opportunities, Chau zeroed in on legal technology.

In 2015, while at venture capital firm Formation 8, he invested in San Francisco-based Ironclad, a company that makes artificial intelligence-powered contract management software. He also assisted with his firm’s investment in Casetext, another legal tech company in San Francisco that launched AI legal assistant CoCounsel before being acquired by Thomson Reuters in 2023.

With the understanding that large language models align perfectly with the work of the legal profession, Chau decided to build his own company. In 2023, he teamed up with Michael Ulin to create Paxton AI, a generative AI platform that serves as an all-in-one assistant for lawyers. Its capabilities include drafting contracts and other legal documents; reviewing and analyzing large amounts of content; and conducting research based on caselaw, state and federal statutes, and regulations.

One thing Chau aimed to do with Paxton was develop a product-led growth company that made its offerings available to and affordable for everyone. He says this became particularly important as he realized many small and midsize law firms didn’t have access to AI.

“It’s something I wanted to do differently, where our product was going to be easily available, and where anyone could experience what an industry-specific AI tool would be like without having to enter long, expensive sales agreements,” says Chau, 42, the CEO of Paxton, which is headquartered in Palo Alto, California. Ulin has since left the company.

A subscription to Paxton is $199 a month, or if you commit to a one-year subscription, $159 a month. The company offers a free trial, which Chau says is also a factor in its success. Chau says more than 1,500 law firms are now using its platform.

Among other notable achievements, Paxton announced in January 2025 that it had raised a total of $28 million in funding. The previous year, it introduced its AI Citator, which verifies the applicability of caselaw. Chau says the tool not only automates what once was a manual and expensive process but increases research reliability.

“That was a big turning point for the company, to be able to position itself as a trusted source of legal research content—not just because we have the most up-to-date materials, but also because we have a proper citation verification system,” says Chau, who grew up in Belgium and speaks French, English and Mandarin.

Chau also has helped educate legal groups on the importance of generative AI and how it applies to their profession. Jenny Silbiger, the state law librarian and access-to-justice coordinator for the Hawaii State Judiciary, has invited him to speak and presented alongside him. Not only does he make technical concepts more understandable, but he’s genuine and relatable, she says.

“It’s nice to know in this big, innovative, fast-paced technology world, it’s a real person behind the wheel who cares deeply about making a positive impact on the world,” says Silbiger, who also counts Paxton’s tools among those she uses for her work.

Chau lives on Oahu in Hawaii, where he enjoys spending his free time with his wife and young daughter and being in or on the water.