Malbek Named a Leader in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Contract Lifecycle Management
Recognized for Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute
We are excited to share that Malbek has been recognized as a Leader in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Contract Lifecycle Management.
We believe this is a milestone that validates not just what we’ve built, but how we’ve built it, and more importantly, why.
But let me be clear: this isn’t a victory lap. This is a launching pad.
We Started with a Simple Truth
March 2017. Matt, Madhu, and I were watching an industry eat itself alive. More than half of CLM implementations were failing. Not because the technology was impossible. Not because customers didn’t need it. But because vendors had lost the plot entirely.
They built rigid systems that required armies of consultants. They treated CLM as a legal department problem when it’s an enterprise opportunity. They talked about “digital transformation” while delivering experiences that felt like archaeological digs through legacy software.
We saw something different: a future where contract management didn’t require a PhD to operate, where AI wasn’t a marketing buzzword but a fundamental architecture, where business users control their own destiny without dependency on IT departments.
So, we made a bet. A big one.
The Rule of Three Changed Everything
While our competitors were building feature lists that read like phone books, we obsessed over a single principle: The Rule of Three.
Three clicks maximum. Three actions per page. That’s it.
Sounds simple, right? It’s not. It’s brutally hard. Every feature request, every “nice to have,” every attempt to add complexity, we filtered it through this lens. Could my mom use this? Could she find any contract, understand its status, and know what happens next without calling me?
That constraint forced us to think differently about everything. And it became our competitive weapon.
We Built the Future Before It Was Obvious
In 2017, AI in enterprise software was mostly exploratory. But we didn’t wait for permission. We experimented with AI 21 Labs when they were just launching, Stanford NLP etc., and embedded intelligence into every workflow from day one.
AI, not as a feature, as the foundation.
While others bolted AI onto legacy architectures and called it innovation, we built it into our DNA. Visual workflows that made complexity comprehensible. Drag-and-drop integrations that put business users in control. An intelligent repository that transformed static contracts into strategic assets.
We didn’t add AI. We are AI-first.
Three Values, One Mission
Beyond technology, we made another crucial decision: we would build a company that people could believe in. Not just customers, but everyone. Employees. Partners. The entire ecosystem.
Three values became our North Star:
Empathy
We solve real pain, not build features that look good in demos. We put ourselves in our customers’ shoes every single day.
Transparency
We don’t do custom code. Full stop. Instead, we show customers what’s possible when you build on a single codebase that serves everyone through fluid configuration. That honesty builds trust and better products.
Innovation
We learn, listen, and evolve daily. Our question is always the same: “How can we make our customers’ lives better?”
Simple to say. Hard to live. But these values have allowed our entire team to move forward in unison, making thousands of decisions that compound into something remarkable.
Why This Recognition Matters
Being named a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant validates our approach. It tells the market that you can draft off our innovation, we will pull you into the future. That focus beats feature bloat. That putting customers first isn’t just good ethics, it’s our DNA.
But here’s what it doesn’t mean: that we’re done.
We didn’t build Malbek to chase billion-dollar valuations. We built it because the current CLM paradigm was broken, and we knew there was a better way. This recognition is proof that the market is finally catching up to what we’ve known all along.
The real question isn’t “How did you become a Leader?” It’s “What will you do now that you are one?”
The Future We’re Building
The CLM market is at an inflection point. The companies that win won’t be the ones with the longest feature lists or the biggest sales teams. They’ll be the ones that make contract management so intuitive, so intelligent, so essential that it becomes invisible infrastructure.
That’s what we’re building. Not just better CLM, a new category entirely.
We’re creating systems where:
- Contracts negotiate themselves based on approved playbooks
- Risk surfaces before it becomes a problem
- Revenue leakage is eliminated through intelligent alerts
- Every stakeholder, legal, sales, procurement, finance, operates from a single source of truth
And it all happens within three clicks.
Love Your CLM
Our tagline isn’t marketing speak. It’s a promise. It’s a vision. It’s a challenge to an industry that’s accepted mediocrity for too long.
Today, we pause. We take a deep breath. We thank every customer who took a chance on us, every team member who believed in the mission, every partner who grew alongside us.
And now, we get back to work.
Because being a Leader isn’t about where you are. It’s about where you’re going.
The next chapter of contract lifecycle management starts now. And we’re just getting started.
Gartner delivers actionable, objective insight to executives and their teams. Its expert guidance and tools enable faster, smarter decisions and stronger performance on an organization’s mission-critical priorities.
The Gartner Magic Quadrant evaluates vendors based on their Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision. We are honored to be included among the recognized vendors in this important report. Learn more about the Magic Quadrant.
Malbek is the market leader in Contract Lifecycle Management, delivering enterprise CLM powered by trusted AI. Our platform enables organizations to draft, negotiate, execute, and manage contracts with unprecedented simplicity and intelligence. Learn why the world’s most innovative companies love their CLM at malbek.com.
Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Contract Lifecycle Management, Kaitlynn Sommers, Kerrie McDonald, Lynne Phelan, 10 November 2025
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