Epiq, a New York-based provider of legal and business services, said on March 24, 2026 that it had acquired LitLingo, an Austin, Texas startup that uses AI to monitor employee communications for compliance risks. The financial terms were not disclosed.
LitLingo's platform is now part of the Epiq Service Cloud. Epiq said the purchase expands its compliance, investigations and risk management services, and lets it help legal and compliance teams deal with antitrust, anti-bribery and corruption, labour and employment, and information security risks.
Darin Hicks, LitLingo's former chief executive, joined Epiq as managing director for compliance.
What LitLingo built
Epiq describes LitLingo as a tool that helps organisations detect, prevent and measure high-risk employee communications around the world as they happen. It analyses email and chat, both in real time and historically, using what it describes as patented AI and machine learning. Its main feature is flagging a problematic message at the moment it is written. When the company raised its Series A in 2021, it said the software could warn users about questionable language before a message was sent, block the message and alert compliance teams for review. It integrated with Slack, Zendesk, Gmail and Office 365.
According to Epiq, the platform supports more than 75 languages, is designed to cut false positives and surface alerts that can be acted on, and gives companies dashboards on how well their compliance programmes work across roles, regions and risk areas, alongside historical trend analysis.
Epiq said Hicks's work has shortened investigation timelines, in many cases from six weeks to two days.
“LitLingo was built to provide highly accurate risk detection and prevent compliance issues before they happen”
The founders and the funding
LitLingo was launched in January 2019 by Kevin Brinig, its first chief executive, and Todd Sifleet. The two met while working at Uber in San Francisco before moving to Austin, according to Silicon Hills News.
The company raised $2 million in August 2020 in a round led by Austin firm LiveOak Venture Partners. In July 2021 it announced a $7.5 million Series A led by Breyer Capital, with former IBM chief executive Sam Palmisano and existing investors including LiveOak, Clarke Nobiletti and James Marsico. That brought its total funding to $9.5 million. At the time it planned to double its headcount over the following year, hiring both at its Austin headquarters and remotely.
Hicks later took over as chief executive. Before LitLingo he had led Hive9 and Bulldog Solutions as CEO and held leadership roles at Acxiom and Trilogy Software, according to his Epiq profile, which also lists a degree in industrial engineering from Stanford University. "LitLingo was built to provide highly accurate risk detection and prevent compliance issues before they happen," he said, adding that joining Epiq would allow the company to scale its technology globally as part of the Epiq Service Cloud.
Why Epiq is buying
Epiq already ran compliance, investigations and risk management services, and has a presence in 17 countries with about 4,000 employees. LitLingo's software adds a preventive layer to that work: rather than reviewing communications after a problem has surfaced, compliance teams can see risky messages as they happen.
"LitLingo AI allows organisations to move beyond waiting for concerns from the hotline to controls that prevent misconduct," said Erin Toomey, vice president and global investigations practice group leader at Epiq.
At Epiq, Hicks leads the company's software for detecting and preventing high-risk communications. His profile says the tools have helped stop thousands of potentially harmful messages from being sent.
What happens to customers
Epiq did not announce changes to LitLingo's product or pricing. The software is now offered as part of the Epiq Service Cloud, where it sits alongside Epiq's existing investigations and compliance services.
Epiq did not say how many LitLingo employees joined, or how many customers the startup had at the time of the deal.
