Licensing Platform Company Brainbase Secures $8 Million In Funding

By Noah Long ● May 23, 2020
  • Brainbase, a technology platform that helps companies manage any licensing, partnership or sponsorship agreement, announced it raised $8 million

Brainbase, a technology platform launched in 2016 by Nate Cavanaugh, Karl Johan Vallner, and Nikolai Tolkatshjov to help companies manage any licensing, partnership or sponsorship agreement from end-to-end in a single platform, announced it raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Nosara Capital with participation from Alpha Edison, Struck Capital, Bonfire Ventures, FJ Labs, Spencer Lazar, Michael Stoppelman (former senior vice president of engineering at Yelp), Jennifer Fleiss (co-founder of Rent The Runway), and David Fraga (president of InVision).

As the creator of the IP licensing platform Brainbase Assist, Brainbase aims to use this funding to build a payments feature for licensors to expedite payments from licensees as well as build Marketplace — a new solution to showcase, connect, and close deals with globally recognized and emerging brands, celebrities, athletes and influencers entirely online.

This round of funding follows a successful time of growth for Brainbase with recent customer acquisitions, including kathy ireland Worldwide, MDR Brand Management, BuzzFeed and Bonnier. And these new brands join existing customers like Sanrio (Hello Kitty), SYBO Games and other well-known brands on Brainbase’s roster. Plus Kathy Ireland has also joined Brainbase as the Global Chief Brand Strategist.

Key Quotes:

“We need to stay focused on building the best platform for brands that own and license their IP. With a strong bench of investors and advisors who believe in our vision to make the intellectual property industry more open, efficient, and accessible, we are prepared for our next stage of growth. In 2020, Brainbase plans to nearly double in size, making key hires across sales, product, and engineering in the U.S. and Europe.”

– Brainbase co-founder and CEO Nate Cavanaugh

“Brainbase is bringing the archaic, paper shuffling world of IP management into the 21st century. We’re thrilled to partner with this team as they help owners of IP assets capture more value while saving a boatload of time and effort.”

– Kent Bennett, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners.

“We’re incredibly impressed with how quickly Brainbase has built industry-leading software tools to help brands more efficiently manage and monetize their intellectual property. The core Assist platform is being used by top global brands, which gives Brainbase a significant advantage in building a marketplace to connect the fragmented landscape of licensors and licensees. We’re excited to support Nate and the team as they execute on their ambitious product roadmap.”

– Ian Loizeaux, founding partner at Nosara Capital