Tradespace recently unveiled the future of intellectual property (IP) with the release of its AI-powered IP Management Platform, which was created to unlock the $1 trillion in latent IP value. And the company also announced $4.2 million in a seed funding round led by Eniac Ventures with participation from Abstract Ventures, Amplo VC and Scrum Ventures, bringing the total funding raised to $5.2 million.
This funding round will be used to deliver the first IP platform powered by a purpose-built large language model (LLM) trained on the largest dataset of open-source and proprietary IP data.
Tradespace has already generated over $100 million in IP revenue for high-tech organizations, including AGC, BAE Systems, the Department of Defense, and leading research institutions like the Department of Energy, MITRE and Northeastern University. And Tradespace has grown its revenue by 100% for the last three quarters and most recently, was selected to develop an IP marketplace for the U.S. Army Research Lab.
Alec Sorensen founded Tradespace in 2019 after spending years in management consulting and working with Fortune 500 companies, private equity, and government labs to analyze and commercialize their IP. And he saw first-hand the challenges nearly every organization faces in understanding their IP.
Even though IP now accounts for a large part of the S&P 500’s total valuation, companies rarely commercialize it. Rather than driving groundbreaking innovations, most IP is trapped on the shelf.
After working with clients to help realize hundreds of millions of dollars by deploying this underutilized IP into markets like cleantech, satellite communications and transportation, Sorensen created Tradespace to provide every IP owner with access to the same tools and expertise that enabled his team to generate such significant returns from IP portfolios. And driving all of this is the belief that the technologies to solve the world’s most critical challenges already exist. Through Tradespace, finding and accessing the IP underpinning those technologies and driving innovation across the economy is finally possible.
Tradespace enables IP leaders to build, manage, and commercialize high-value IP portfolios. And the company is developing a 70 billion parameter LLM trained on the largest dataset of open-source and proprietary IP data.
These models power automated workflows that reduce the time and money IP teams spend evaluating new IP by up to 40% while enabling companies to build IP portfolios that better protect their core innovations and unlock lucrative commercialization opportunities. And through Tradespace, IP leaders can confidently deliver on their mission to create lasting value for the business.
Tradespace’s Platform automates the process of evaluating new invention disclosures by searching for prior art so organizations get higher quality patents, faster and cheaper; identifies crown jewels, gaps, and deadweights across an IP portfolio so owners can develop a better IP strategy; and creates new revenue opportunities from IP portfolios through monetization, partnership, financing and M&A.
KEY QUOTES:
“IP has long been one of our economy’s most valuable assets, but it’s also been one of the most underutilized. This new funding enables Tradespace to continue developing the most powerful, domain-specific AI models that will change how IP owners develop high-quality patents, identify their crown jewels, and create new opportunities for the business.”
– Alec Sorensen, founder and CEO of Tradespace
“Tradespace provides unique visibility into our IP portfolio and is an invaluable resource for leveraging our world-class IP to drive new innovation and create value for shareholders.”
– Scott Asmus, Chief IP Counsel at BAE Systems
“Over ninety percent of patents end up sitting idle–because they have no inherent value or their owners don’t know how to realize their value. We’re in the dawn of a new era–the application of a bespoke LLM to IP can eliminate the majority of useless patents while allowing inventors and IP owners to realize the full potential of patents they hold.”
– Tim Young, founding partner at Eniac Ventures and a patent attorney and former IP licensing attorney at Morrison & Foerster
