San Francisco, CA – June 23, 2026 – Cooley, in collaboration with Legora and Y Combinator, today announced the launch of Cooley GO Lab, an AI-powered workspace designed to help startups in real time as they build. It will debut exclusively with Y Combinator’s summer 2026 cohort.

Startups today are operating in a more complex environment – shaped by AI-driven disruption, a tighter venture funding environment and increasing regulatory scrutiny – making early decisions more consequential than ever. Built on Legora Portal, a white‑labeled workspace for AI‑powered workflows and legal knowledge, Cooley GO Lab provides startups with information and context to support timely and more informed decision‑making.

The platform reflects a new model for extending legal knowledge through AI – embedding trusted and focused insight directly into company‑building workflows. Cooley GO Lab offers an early example of how Legora’s technology empowers firms to deliver that model at scale.

“We’re entering a new era in how legal insights are delivered and applied,” said Matthew Bartus, partner and global co-chair of Cooley’s emerging companies and venture capital practice group. “Having built our firm alongside many of the world’s most innovative companies, we understand how quickly they move and what they need to scale. Cooley GO Lab reflects that experience, as our lawyers continue to directly shape and refine the underlying content. Combined with Legora’s advanced AI and Y Combinator’s unmatched network, we’re creating a new way to support the next generation of companies.”

Informed by the experience of Cooley lawyers and decades of advising high‑growth companies, Cooley GO Lab leverages real‑world legal patterns across formation, equity and governance. The platform integrates Cooley GO’s curated, startup specific content with practitioner‑informed knowledge, helping startups evaluate documents against market practice and move forward with greater clarity.

Cooley GO Lab is designed for speed and ease of use, with current features including:

  • AI workflows powered by Cooley experience and insight that analyze documents, such as nondisclosure and contractor agreements, against market prevalent terms and highlight key considerations for review.
  • A shared AI workspace where companies can upload their corporate files and ask the AI agent questions about their specific documents.
  • A Cooley GO knowledge base that allows startups to query Cooley GO content and access standard startup forms and templates. 

    [1]

The collaboration marks a full-circle moment for Legora. The company itself was founded through Y Combinator, where co-founder and CEO Max Junestrand built the earliest version of Legora.

“Seeing Cooley use Legora Portal to bring world-class AI workflows and legal information directly to YC startups is exactly what Portal was built for – letting firms deliver their best thinking at scale, to the people who need it most,” said Junestrand.

Y Combinator, which backed Legora at its founding, sees the tool as a direct response to what startups face today.

“Early-stage YC startups are growing faster than ever and need legal information earlier than they used to. At the same time, as AI becomes part of every industry, regulatory complexity for startups is increasing. Cooley GO Lab, powered by Legora, gives companies a faster, more intuitive way to become familiar with the legal landscape,” said Gustaf Alströmer, General Partner at Y Combinator.

[1] While Cooley GO Lab does not provide legal advice or create an attorney-client relationship between its users and Cooley, it arms startups with world-class information and workflows powered by best-in-class AI.

About Cooley LLP

Clients partner with Cooley on transformative deals, complex IP and regulatory matters, and high-stakes litigation. Cooley has nearly 1,400 lawyers across 19 offices in the United States, Asia and Europe, and a total workforce of more than 3,000 people.

Cooley is the go-to advisor to innovators and disruptors. As one of the most active firms globally advising on early- and late-stage financings, initial public offerings and M&A, Cooley combines a multidisciplinary platform with efficient, tech-enabled resources designed to provide clients with premium counsel through each stage as they scale. Cooley is deeply connected in the venture ecosystem, working with startups, boards, management teams and investors to support 7,000+ high-growth private companies reshaping the global economy.

ABOUT LEGORA

Legora is the agentic operating system for legal work, supporting lawyers in research, review and drafting across complex matters. It is used by more than 100,000 legal professionals at more than 1,200 leading law firms and in-house legal teams across 50+ markets.

ABOUT Y COMBINATOR

Y Combinator is the world’s leading startup accelerator. Since 2005, YC has funded more than 5,000 startups, including Airbnb, Stripe, Coinbase, DoorDash, Instacart, Reddit and OpenAI, with a combined valuation exceeding $1.3 trillion. YC invests in a new batch of startups four times a year and works closely with founders to help them build, launch and scale their companies. Y Combinator is based in San Francisco. Learn more.

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