In what marks a rather rare occurrence on Sequoia’s part, the largely Asia/US focused VC firm has invested an undisclosed amount in London HQed Patsnap, an IP analytics startup that has also lent its services to folks like NASA. Yup.
The company has major presence in both China and Singapore as well.
Patsnap feels, that the strength of its intelligence platform lies in its ability to comprehend the entire R&D life cycle of a technology company’s intangible assets – from idea generation and research, through product development and commercialization. For many of PatSnap’s customers, their intangible assets, including intellectual property, could account for up to 80% of the company’s value.
Shunwei Capital and Qualgro have also joined the funding round, which will be used to further Patsnap’s R&D works. And even though no financial details were disclosed at this time, sources close to the deal have told The Tech Portal that the round is in “tens of millions of dollars”. Considering that the company has raised closed to $14.5 Million combined in previous rounds, one could assume this round to be in the vicinity of $25-$30 Million, if not more.
PatSnap has brought together a big IP dataset of over 118 million patents, and makes this data accessible and relevant through adding licensing and litigation data, economic data, patent valuation, image and chemical formula search and trademark recognition.
Founded by CEO Jeffrey Tiong, the company spent several years building early versions of the PatSnap platform within an accelerator program at the National University of Singapore. PatSnap now has offices in London, China and Singapore, operating in 40 industries and serving over 3,000 customers worldwide, including NASA, Vodafone, L’Oreal and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
We realize that innovation is the lifeblood of the global economy, and intellectual property is an incredibly important asset on a company’s balance sheet. At PatSnap, we support innovators across every level of the enterprise, from scientists and engineers, to C level executives and directors, by developing intuitive tools which enable them to make better informed decisions around every aspect of the innovation lifecycle.
said PatSnap Founder Jeffrey Tiong.
Patsnap will invest the funds raised from this Series C to further its R&D work. It is developing new products that address an evolving market where innovation initiatives are becoming increasingly instrumental for any successful business. PatSnap currently has some 400 employees based in its Singapore, London (UK) and Suzhou (China) offices and will continue to expand its team globally.
The startup is also developing new products that address an evolving market where innovation initiatives are becoming increasingly instrumental for any successful business. The company utilizes the data to help companies like IBM, United States Department of Defense and NASA to handle their intellectual property-related analytics.
In Singapore alone its is building an R&D centre and planning to hire 20 more engineers and data scientists. In future it is also looking to partner with Economic Development Board to build its R&D here. With support from government, the company will undertake new projects to drive further innovation to existing products to accomplish data-driven Smart Nation Vision.
The firm had earlier raised a Series A of S$5 million in 2014 and Series B of S$16 million in 2015.
In an announcement, Zhang Jihui co-founder of Patsnap said,
With our roots in China, we are a technology-focused Software as a Service (SaaS) company dedicated to providing professional services to over 3,000 companies in and outside of China.
