Max Junestrand doesn’t mince words. The 25-year-old co-founder and CEO of Stockholm-based Legora stood on stage in Turin last week and called out a favorite European talking point. Software sovereignty, he said, often serves as cover for companies afraid to compete on the world stage.
“I think sovereignty in enterprise applications, or sovereignty in consumer apps, or sovereignty at the software layer is kind of an excuse for companies who are not bold enough to compete globally. Because the enterprise layer and the software layer is the global market,” Junestrand told the audience at Wave by Vento, according to a report in The Next Web.
The remarks landed with force. They came during a session titled “The Compounding Bet,” moderated by Jeannette zu Fürstenberg, president and managing director at General Catalyst, one of Legora’s investors. The exchange highlighted a persistent tension in European tech circles. How much should policymakers and executives prioritize regional control over technology? And at what cost to ambition?
Legora itself offers a case study in the alternative path. Founded in 2023, the company builds AI-powered tools for lawyers. It targets complex legal workflows with collaborative platforms that automate document review, analysis and more. No legal background required for its founders. Junestrand and his team interviewed dozens of practitioners early on, paid them their hourly rates for insights, and built from there.
The results speak volumes. From roughly $1 million in annual recurring revenue to $100 million in under 18 months. Hundreds of law firms as customers, including major names like Cleary Gottlieb and Goodwin. More than 100 employees. Offices in Denver, New York, London, Sydney and beyond. Engineering stays anchored in Stockholm. The company has raised around $265 million, reaching a valuation north of $1 billion. Details drawn from profiles in Forbes and interviews with Artificial Lawyer.
But scale alone doesn’t settle the sovereignty debate. Zu Fürstenberg pushed back during the Turin discussion. She argued Europe must secure ownership in energy, compute infrastructure and foundational layers of the stack. Those areas carry strategic weight. Dependence there creates real vulnerabilities. Junestrand agreed on that point. Sovereignty matters for defense, critical infrastructure and energy. Not so much for the applications lawyers use every day.
Enterprise software buyers operate across borders. Their offices span Europe, the United States and Asia. A product labeled sovereign in one jurisdiction loses meaning when teams collaborate internationally. “For them, a sovereign product doesn’t really make any sense at all,” Junestrand said, per The Next Web.
The Limits of Regional Barriers
Europe has spent years sounding alarms about digital dependence. Policymakers worry about American cloud providers, Chinese hardware and the flow of data across oceans. Regulations like GDPR aimed to assert control. More recent pushes target semiconductors, AI models and cloud infrastructure. Some governments favor local vendors for public contracts. Others explore open-source alternatives to reduce lock-in.
Yet these efforts sometimes blur important distinctions. Control at the infrastructure level differs sharply from control at the application layer. A sovereign cloud might address data residency rules. It doesn’t automatically deliver better software for specialized tasks. And building everything domestically carries steep costs. Estimates for weaning Europe off foreign tech run into trillions of euros. Success remains uncertain. Related analysis appears in reports from CEPA and heise online published earlier this year.
Junestrand’s company took the opposite bet. Legora designed its platform to work across multiple AI models rather than training its own from scratch. That decision drew skepticism at first. Many vertical AI startups chased proprietary models. Legora bet the underlying technology would improve rapidly no matter who built it. The product could ride that wave. Focus instead on the last 10% to 20% of performance that general tools miss. Lawyers tolerate zero errors. That demand forces rigor.
The approach paid off. Adoption surprised even the founders. Partners and senior counsel turned out to be power users. Smaller teams now tackle bigger matters. Human judgment remains central. But AI handles repetitive work that once consumed hours. One recent shift at Legora moved certain features to usage-based pricing. Heavy users of AI agents generate far more compute cost than light users. Traditional seat licenses no longer fit. The change drew mixed reactions from law firms but aligned spending with actual value, as detailed in a Business Insider article from August.
And here’s the uncomfortable truth for some European executives. Global markets reward speed and quality. They punish hesitation dressed up as principle. Legora opened to the wider market in late 2024. Demand proved enormous. The company completed five acquisitions in a single year. It keeps product and engineering in-house, never outsourced. That discipline preserves quality. It also keeps decision-making close.
Junestrand maintains board control alongside his co-founder despite large funding rounds. Unusual. It lets them prioritize product excellence over short-term metrics. In an earlier interview he dismissed the idea of law firms or large enterprises training their own general legal models. “Millionen und Abermillionen Dollar auszugeben, um ein chinesisches Open-Source-Modell zu nehmen und für allgemeine juristische Intelligenz nachzutrainieren, ist eine sehr schlechte Idee,” he told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in September. Wasteful theater, in his view.
Critics of the sovereignty push point to similar inefficiencies. Protectionism can shield local players from competition. It can also trap them in smaller markets. Software, unlike physical infrastructure, travels easily. The best legal AI tool will win clients in New York, London and Frankfurt alike. Nationality of the builder matters less than capability.
But the counterargument carries weight too. Compute infrastructure, energy grids and foundational models shape what applications can even exist. Europe lacks major players in those areas. Reliance on foreign providers exposes governments and companies to policy shifts abroad. Export controls, data requests under laws like the U.S. CLOUD Act, or sudden pricing changes all create risk. Zu Fürstenberg emphasized this lower-stack sovereignty during the Wave by Vento exchange.
The discussion reflects broader anxiety. Europe watches U.S. AI giants race ahead. It sees China invest heavily in its own stack. Calls for “tech independence” grow louder. Yet building competitive alternatives takes capital, talent and time. Many European startups still look to Silicon Valley for their biggest rounds and exits. Legora raised from top global funds while staying rooted in Sweden.
Its success doesn’t resolve the policy questions. It does challenge easy assumptions. Not every layer of technology requires the same degree of regional ownership. Applications aimed at global users benefit from global competition. Forcing sovereignty there may simply discourage the boldness Junestrand advocates.
Legora continues to expand. New hubs are planned. The product evolves quickly because the underlying AI changes every few months. Annual roadmaps have given way to quarterly thinking at best. That agility matters more than origin stories in fast-moving fields.
European leaders face a choice. They can invest in the foundational capabilities that provide true leverage. Energy security, domestic compute, strong research institutions. Or they can apply sovereignty rhetoric broadly and risk creating comfortable niches instead of world-class competitors. Junestrand’s blunt assessment in Turin suggests many have chosen the latter. The evidence from his own company’s trajectory indicates the bolder route can work.
Whether others follow remains to be seen. The global market waits for no one. And excuses only last so long.
Legora CEO Blasts Software Sovereignty as Excuse for European Timidity first appeared on Web and IT News.