Charter Oak —
eBrevia —
» From page 1
» From page 1
“It is a thing of the past to think that able-bodied persons are living in this housing and not working,” he said. “That is not a survivable strate�y here or anyanother 1,450 units. But it also does more, where. As public housing failed in the assisting residents in arenas that include past, it became homogeneous, without school, health care and employment with the ability to break out and see other a designated staff of 10 “service coordina- behaviors — negative reinforcement.” tors.” Gone by design for new construction The coordinators are part of a 10-year are what Tufo called “out-of-context propcollaboration between Charter Oak and erties,” those that separate residents from Greenwich-based and century-old Family their neighbors. Such housing historically Centers. Said Charter Oak CEO Vin Tufo, denied tenants a sense of personal space 61, “They develop a path between resident to protect and keep up, termed “defensiand community to connect the resident ble space.” Tufo said that when people are with resources. In the old days, residents invested in the neighborhood and care were not connected to resources.” In time, for the distance between the street and he said, good begets good: “It’s incredibly the front door, the results are tangible. gratifying now to see residents helping Housing of this sort is embodied by neighbors, dealing with nagging issues, the under-construction Greenfield develpresenting resident-led initiatives. It leads opment on Merrell Avenue, a 45-unit, to safety and vitality on the streets.” mixed-income development to be comThe 24 units at 25 Taylor St. — the pleted this fall. Taylor Street Apartments — offer a snapIn the red-white-and-bluest tradition shot of Charter Oak activity. Opened in of equality, Greenfield will feature janitors 2007, Taylor Street is termed a “mixed- and executives living side by side. “The tenure building,” consisting of eight own- sociological or anthropological approach er-occupied condominiums and 16 rental says sustainability equals diversity,” Tufo apartments. The condos are owned by said. “We try to diversify income status. moderate-income, first-time homebuy- But I also feel there’s a social currency. ers. The apartments are partly funded Diversity is healthy when everybody has by the federal low-income housing tax great roof over their heads and with simicredit and provide supportive services. lar opportunities, feeling safe. The apartments house elderly, nonelderly “It all helps inform what we do here,” he said. “We are all about communities.” The rising $450 million Stamford Hospital is part of the Charter Oak equation. The hospital’s façade will eventually front a remade world of housing, businesses and a large urban garden — the three-years-running Fairgate Farm on Stillwater Charter Oak’s vision for the Stillwater neighborhood. — to the west. In that Stillwater Avenue neighand disabled residents. And like nearly borhood, which had been separate from every Charter Oak unit, they are occu- the current hospital, Tufo described a pied, “about 100 percent,” said Tufo. previously descending spiral of behavior The 204 units at Lawnhill Terrace typified by a local parking lot: first fences, on Custer Street were built in 1968 to be then locked gates and finally guard towfully affordable. Now, after a $19 million ers. A computer rendering highlights a ongoing remake, they will feature mixed- much sunnier potential for Stillwater. The income and affordable units together, hospital is due for completion in 2016. with no full-market component. Rent will Charter Oak is on pace to assist 50 be “moderate.” to 100 people per year in the coming Tufo’s professional background — years. All its leases are for one year, and “critical to the job,” as he put it — is real it fields as many as 600 referrals per estate development and construction, month. Between rents, grants and vouchboth of which are Charter Oak hallmarks. ers, Charter Oak’s annual revenue stream His doctorate is in anthropolo�y from is about $100 million. It employs 85. the University of Michigan, and a conTufo said the feedback for Charter versation with him touches upon social Oak activity is positive. “Residents don’t awareness of the sort that makes solid want to go back to the old ways. At that neighborhoods when successful, and bad critical moment when they are handed neighborhoods, as in the 1960s, when it the keys to their new apartment, many fails. break down and cry.”
6 Week of April 14, 2014 • FairField County Business Journal
the junior associates to do the work,” said Ned Gannon, CEO of eBrevia. “Companies may force law firms to write off some of that time. Say if a junior associate spends 10 hours a day on the contracts, maybe the firm can only bill the company for seven hours.” In search of a solution, Gannon and his Harvard Law School dorm mate Adam Nguyen, who is the current chief financial officer and chief operating officer, looked at ways to develop a software system that could cut the costs while doing all the heavy lifting of extracting relevant data from lengthy contracts with the click of a mouse. The software eBrevia uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to quickly peruse scanned hard copies of documents that are translated into readable text. The system searches for
In the fall of 2012, eBrevia was one of four national winners at a Startup America DEMO innovation competition.
words associated with certain legal terms that a user can select in a checkbox-style menu. Once the user clicks the “extract” button, the software pulls up a separate document and lays out the information it extracted in an organized, systematic manner. “Through the software, attorneys can log in and read through the files online,” Gannon said. “The purpose is to summarize the contracts and look for problematic provisions.” In 2011, the founders spent months doing sponsored research under professor Kathleen McKeown, director of the Institute for Data Sciences and Engineering at Columbia University, where they met Jake Mundt, their current chief technolo�y officer. The startup then spun out of Columbia in 2012, incorporating the artificial intelligence technolo�y developed at the college. That’s when eBrevia’s journey into financing its start-
up began. The founders entered multiple competitions to earn grants, giving more investors and law firms a chance to see their idea and own a share of the rising company. After Columbia, the eBrevia founders got involved in a ten-week program with Connecticut Innovations, a quasi-public venture capital organization. The program trained them to pitch their startup idea in a seven-minute presentation in front of potential investors. By the end of the program, CT Innovations, another institutional investor, and a number of angel investors decided to invest in the company and now own a share of eBrevia. In the fall of 2012, eBrevia was one of four national winners at a Startup America DEMO innovation competition and asked to fly to Santa Clara, Calif., to present at a conference. Shortly after returning, they were selected as one of the top ten enterprises products by CIO.com, and when they came back to Connecticut, they received the Connecticut Technolo�y Council’s “Most Promising Software Product of the Year” award. Most recently, the eBrevia startup was one of eight selected from nearly 40 applicants to receive a $10,000 grant from CTNext, another Connecticut venture capital organization. “We’ll be using those funds to include new features that our users have suggested,” Gannon said. “So the way we spend the money is in direct response to user feedback. We raised $175,000 in just grants, including what we got at the CTNext competition.” Although the product can be sold on the market as is, the three founders of eBrevia are holding off on advertising it until they add more bells and whistles to the system. “We’re iterating based on the feedback we’re receiving,” Nguyen said. “It’s helpful to get it into the hands of attorneys. And people who use it have different suggestions as to what features to consider. People have been very impressed by it and particularly excited about how to get at the complex concepts that wind their way throughout a document.” So far, law firms and in-house legal departments throughout Connecticut, New York, Boston and Arizona have used the eBrevia software, Gannon said. Looking ahead, eBrevia plans to create a contract management system to help organize contracts. “The way we frame it to our potential clients is, compare this to a human being using it without the software versus a human being with the software, and compare their productivity,” Nguyen said. “The human component is still needed.”