Who Is Winston Weinberg, the Co-Founder and CEO of Harvey?

Winston Weinberg is the co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Harvey, the legal artificial intelligence (AI) company he started with Gabe Pereyra in 2022.

At Layer3Labs, we build AI automation workflows for professional teams, so we evaluate founder backgrounds to understand how domain experience translates into production software.

Before launching Harvey, Weinberg was an associate in securities and antitrust litigation at O'Melveny & Myers LLP.

Core Profile of Winston Weinberg

Winston Weinberg runs Harvey as CEO alongside co-founder Gabe Pereyra, a former DeepMind research scientist who is Harvey's President.

In September 2026, Harvey raised $550 million at a $15.5 billion valuation. A November 2025 TechCrunch profile traces his path from first-year associate at O'Melveny to Harvey's CEO.

• Current role: Chief executive officer and co-founder of Harvey.
• Organization: Harvey, a legal AI company founded in 2022.
• Co-founder: Gabe Pereyra, President and co-founder of Harvey.
• Academic credentials: BA from Kenyon College; JD from the USC Gould School of Law.
• Known for: Co-founding Harvey, whose first institutional investor was the OpenAI Startup Fund.
• In the news for: A $550 million raise at a $15.5 billion valuation and the acquisition of Guardrails AI, both in September 2026.

Academic Background and Early Legal Career

According to his official Harvey author biography, Weinberg earned a Bachelor of Arts (BA) from Kenyon College and a Juris Doctor (JD) from the USC Gould School of Law.

During his studies at USC, he contributed to the Southern California Law Review, as confirmed by his speaker profile for London Tech Week.

Following law school, Weinberg joined O'Melveny & Myers LLP as an associate, specializing in securities and antitrust litigation.

Founding Partnership and Early OpenAI Backing

Harvey began in 2022 as an experimental collaboration between Winston Weinberg and his former roommate Gabe Pereyra.

At the time, Pereyra was working at Meta, according to TechCrunch. According to Wikipedia, Pereyra demonstrated OpenAI's GPT-3 system to Weinberg.

Weinberg and Pereyra conducted a structured test of GPT-3 on California landlord-tenant law questions. TechCrunch reported that across 86 out of 100 sample inquiries, two-thirds or more of reviewing attorneys indicated they would send the AI answers unchanged.

Weinberg and Pereyra cold-emailed Sam Altman and OpenAI general counsel Jason Kwon. TechCrunch reported that the outreach led to a scheduled discussion on July 4: "On the morning of July 4 at 10 a.m.... we got on a call with them." Following that meeting, OpenAI's Startup Fund became Harvey's first institutional investor. Teams looking at how those early experiments evolved into production systems can read our breakdown of how Harvey works.

Gabe Pereyra and Engineering Leadership

Gabe Pereyra's official Harvey author profile states that he worked as a research scientist at DeepMind and as a machine learning engineer at Meta. Pereyra earned a Bachelor of Science (BS) in Computer Science from USC and pursued a PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Oxford before turning his focus to AI industry roles.

Pereyra writes Harvey's technical blog posts. On September 8, 2026, he published "Post-Training RLM Agents for End-to-End M&A Diligence."

Financing History and Valuation Growth

Harvey's valuation rose from $715 million in December 2023 to $15.5 billion in September 2026.

Wikipedia records that Harvey secured a $5 million round led by the OpenAI Startup Fund in November 2022, followed by a $23 million round led by Sequoia Capital in April 2023. In December 2023, Harvey raised an $80 million round at a $715 million valuation. In July 2024, GV led a $100 million round that valued Harvey at $1.5 billion.

TechCrunch reported that Harvey reached a $3 billion valuation in February 2025, rose to $5 billion in June 2025, and reached an $8 billion valuation in late 2025 in a financing round led by Andreessen Horowitz. In February 2026, TechCrunch, citing Forbes, reported that Harvey was raising capital at an $11 billion valuation. Wikipedia records that round closing in March 2026 as a $200 million investment led by GIC and Sequoia Capital.

On September 9, 2026, Harvey announced in an official blog post that it secured $550 million at a $15.5 billion valuation. Diffusion and Lightspeed Venture Partners co-led the round. Artificial Lawyer reported Sapphire Ventures and Whale Rock as new investors, with returning investors including Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue and GIC. In a joint statement, Weinberg and Pereyra noted: "The opportunity for companies to accelerate their competitive advantage with AI has never been higher."

• November 2022: $5 million round led by the OpenAI Startup Fund.
• April 2023: $23 million round led by Sequoia Capital.
• December 2023: $80 million round at a $715 million valuation.
• July 2024: $100 million round at a $1.5 billion valuation led by GV.
• Late 2025: $8 billion valuation round led by Andreessen Horowitz.
• March 2026: $200 million investment at an $11 billion valuation led by GIC and Sequoia Capital.
• September 2026: $550 million round at a $15.5 billion valuation co-led by Diffusion and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Revenue Milestones and Enterprise Adoption

TechCrunch reported in November 2025 that Harvey had passed $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) in August 2025.

The same report counted about 700 clients in 63 countries and around 400 employees. In a conversation with Artificial Lawyer published on January 8, 2026, Weinberg stated that Harvey's ARR had reached $190 million across about 1,000 clients.

On August 7, 2026, PYMNTS, citing reporting from The Information, revealed that Harvey's annualized revenue climbed past $350 million, up from $190 million in January. PYMNTS also reported that Harvey's customer roster reached approximately 1,300 organizations by March 2026. Addressing capital expansion, Weinberg remarked that "bringing on marquee investors for our next stage of growth is critical."

In its September 2026 funding release, Harvey reported that 80% of Am Law 100 firms and five of the Fortune 10 in-house legal departments use Harvey. Law firm operational leads reviewing procurement figures can consult our breakdown of Harvey pricing and seat licenses.

Corporate Acquisitions and Technical Expansion

Harvey broadened its software capabilities and engineering talent by completing four corporate acquisitions during 2026.

On January 26, 2026, Artificial Lawyer reported that Harvey acqui-hired Hexus, a startup that had worked on product demos. Artificial Lawyer quoted the rationale as "the incredible technical experience, but also enterprise experience."

In July 2026, Harvey announced its acquisition of Benchmark, a Y Combinator-backed decision platform built for asset management, covered in an official announcement. Harvey completed that transaction following a second quarter that added more than $100 million in new ARR.

In September 2026, Harvey announced the acquisition of Guardrails AI, marking its fourth corporate transaction of the year. Artificial Lawyer reported that Guardrails AI co-founders Shreya Rajpal and Zayd Simjee joined Harvey.

Winston Weinberg's Public Comments on Legal AI

Winston Weinberg has described AI tools as a tutor for junior lawyers.

Speaking to TechCrunch in November 2025, Weinberg reflected on legal talent development: "If you can build tools that can do the first pass of an M&A, that is a one-on-one tutor for a junior associate." Weinberg also shared his candid perspective on venture capital discussions, stating that "the best way to raise money is to just make sure your company is doing super well."

In his January 2026 Artificial Lawyer interview, Weinberg framed the ongoing engineering focus at Harvey: "Our goal is to build a product that meets the personalization demands of lawyers while matching the governance concerns for firms." On June 10, 2026, Weinberg spoke at London Tech Week, delivering an address titled "Reshaping the Legal Landscape with AI."

For how Harvey compares with other legal AI products, see Harvey alternatives for law firms and Harvey vs Legora. Our profile of Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas covers another AI founder, and more are in AI people to watch.