The SEF.WomenAward business prize was presented for the fifth time this year. Paulina Grnarova, co-founder of DeepJudge, received the prize for “Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2025”. We maintain a cooperative friendship with the SEF.WomenAward and are pleased to introduce the 33-year-old North Macedonia-born Paulina to our community.
The plan to meet Paulina Grnarova (33) in person was ambitious. The multi-award-winning computer scientist with a doctorate is constantly travelling to present and promote her product DeepJudge worldwide. Finally, we manage a Zoom call. Paulina is currently in New Orleans, attending a Legal Tech conference.
Ladies Drive: First things first: congratulations on your award! Was being successful in the world of AI your proclaimed goal as a student?
Paulina Grnarova: Thank you! Sort of. I studied computer science and AI is part of computer science. For my PhD, I decided to specialise in AI. When I started, it was definitely not as big as it is now.
How did you start DeepJudge?
We launched DeepJudge in mid-2021, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. I had just completed my PhD and immediately co-founded the company. My two co-founders, Kevin Roth and Yannic Kilcher, were also part of the same PhD research group. My specialisation was in deep generative models (DGMs), a field I began exploring in 2015 during the early stages of my doctoral studies. Prior to founding DeepJudge, we also gained experience working at Google, where we observed significant technological advancements. There was a notable shift in the field, with the emergence of new models that greatly enhanced understanding and processing of text, leading to substantial improvements in performance.
Recognising this pivotal moment, my co-founders and I understood we were at the forefront of a major technological inflection point, both academically and in large-scale production. We were eager to explore potential applications of these advancements.
To deepen our understanding of the legal domain, we took courses offered by the ETH legal department. We learned that legal work is heavily reliant on text – much of it written by humans for human readers – which aligns perfectly with the strengths of these new models. This insight inspired us to develop solutions tailored to the legal industry. The rest is history.
Did you need investors in the beginning? How did you secure them?
In the early stages, we participated in numerous competitions, which provided us with funding through awards and grants. As an ETH spin-off and startup, our affiliation also contributed positively to our credibility. Once we developed a minimum viable product (MVP), we began actively seeking investors to support our growth.
Just for understanding: what is an MVP?
It’s kind of like a toy version of whatever you want to build to prove your point. Through the grants and awards we started getting a lot of recognition. Investors reached out to us and we decided to do a funding round, an angel round with well-known angels from Switzerland. Last year we completed a second round but with a tier 1 venture capital firm from the US called Coatue.
What is your strategy?
Right now we are at a very nice growth phase and we’re doing quite well. So for now, the strategy is definitely to grow as much as possible, observe our options and we’ll see. But we’re definitely not rushing to sell or to exit. We know we can build a lot more and grow a lot more.
How big is your team right now?
We are now around 50 people, we’re growing very fast.
Do you publish numbers?
No, the revenue and financials are not publicly disclosed.
Tell us more about your path. Was there ever a critical point where you thought: my god, what am I doing here?
No, not really, to be honest. I was very motivated to do it. I’m obviously in a startup, there are highs and lows and there are moments where you question whether this was the right decision. But I think this is the kind of time where the team helps a lot and I’m not alone as a founder, I have two incredible co-founders. We are all going through something along the way, being a team of three founders helps to overcome any doubts. I think we’re very happy. The learning curve is big, I’m very determined to enjoy the journey and not just be focused on whatever the end goal is. The good part about a startup is that you get to choose the people you work with. And generally, the people that we work with are super smart, super talented. All of us want to succeed.
You have two male co-founders, any red flags here?
No, it was never about the gender. We have the same CV. They both did a PhD in machine learning at ETH as well, and they both worked at Google. Our backgrounds are exactly the same, but we are not exactly the same person, right? We have different sets of skills and interests. And I think we work very well together. Even in our hiring, it has always been about the skills and not about the gender or anything.
You are growing fast and developing fast. Where do you get inputs now at this stage of your growth?
From different sources. One is obviously the users. We want to make the users very happy. So we listen to what they want, what is working for them, what is not working concerning the product. Generally, for strategy and direction of the company, it’s a bunch of people. We have amazing investors and amazing advisors, and we have leaned on them quite a bit. One particular thing, for instance, about DeepJudge is that, even though we are headquartered in Switzerland, the product and engineering team is based out of Switzerland, we are selling globally. One of our largest target markets is the US, so we have a team in the US. It was essential to pick the right team in the US.
We did that strategically with different people to cover different areas. We ourselves are three technical founders, but obviously we’re selling into a particular field that is into legal topics. So we picked people who know the world of laws and legal issues AND the tech field as well. Our VCs are amazing as advisors. They have seen a number of companies scale and maybe even scale from Europe to the US and they can kind of summarise a bunch of things that worked and didn’t work for other companies so that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time.
Talking about the US: can you share some thoughts about the situation right now from your point of view?
There’s a lot of uncertainty. So far, we have not been affected. But we are monitoring how things are going. I personally would prefer to stay and live in Switzerland. Right now, I’m travelling a lot to the US and we have an amazing team in the States as well. So far, that is working really well. The engineering team is going to stay in Switzerland long term. We have access to great technical talent in Switzerland. We will keep that part in Switzerland and I will be back and forth.
How important are awards for you at this stage and especially this SEF.WomenAward as Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2025?
It depends on the award. In general, it is very nice to have a recognition that you’re doing something well. This particular award was very meaningful to me because I very much believe in role models. As a woman coming out of computer science where there are not that many women entering the field and as a founder where there are not that many female founders I really appreciate the idea of seeing role models or other people highlighted who have achieved something so that others in a similar position realise that it can be done.
Did you have a role model that you looked up to?
Yeah, a bunch! And in different ways, right, you identify with some people that are successful female founders in a startup or computer scientists, definitely.
Somebody particular that you would like to name?
Melanie Gabriel is one that I really like. She’s one of the co-founders of Yokoy.
We sure know her, Melanie was awarded Female Innovator of the Year 2021 at our own Female Innovation Forum. Please share your secret of how you look after yourself.
I try to get in nice sleep. I think sleep is important. I optimise that a lot with smart beds, smart gadgets and so on. Then I try to do sports and we make that a team activity, actually. There is a sports centre at the university at ETH. With a lot of high intensity classes that are very fun with loud disco music. To really let go of the tension feels very good!
