Pathlyticsan AI-powered patent analytics platform, wants to help businesses, copyright practitioners and law firms accelerate their patent workflows, from discovery, analysis, comparisons and prosecution in legal proceedings.
The fledgling startup secured $4.5 million in seed funding, oversubscribed and closed in days, led by GoogleAI-focused VC arm Gradient Ventures.
Patlytics was founded by CEO Paul Lee, a former venture investor at Tribe, and CTO Arthur Jen, a serial entrepreneur who co-founded and served as CTO of web3 wallet platform Magic. Their shared vision and complementary skills set the foundation for Patlytics, driven by their first-hand experiences and deep understanding of industry pain points.
The co-founders told TechCrunch that they saw a lot of opportunity in the IP space. Lee, who spent most of his previous career investing in vertical SaaS and AI and a few legal tech startups, encountered many IP companies that were using antiquated techniques in a workflow that (he thought) should be digitized. While working at Magic, Jen was heavily involved in filing and defending patents to protect the company’s technology.
“The AI revolution in patent intelligence is not just about efficiency. it’s about transforming the way patent practitioners plan and engage with the entire patent lifecycle,” Lee said in an exclusive interview with TechCrunch. “Recognizing the complex mix of technical and legal expertise required for patent work, we’ve developed our platform to be an indispensable ally for patent professionals.”
Traditional patent prosecution and litigation workflows, which rely heavily on manual input, are complex and time-consuming, Lee continued. The research and discovery phase, which involves searching and analyzing large volumes of patent data, requires significant effort, involving Internet searches, piecemeal manual research, and inherently inefficient processes.”
What sets the startup apart from industry peers like Anaqua, Clarivate, and Patsnap is that Patlytics is “the only provider of end-to-end blueprints and end-to-end graph solutions” in its current AI-first approach to insights and the analytics, Lee explained.
Another difference is that the platform is not solely based on software solutions, but has a place for human participation in the process.
Image Credits: Patlytics / Co-Founders: Arthur Jenn (CTO) and Paul Lee (CEO)
The outfit recently released their product, which is SOC-2 certification, and already serves some leading law firms and a few corporate in-house counsel as clients. The company did not disclose the number of customers due to confidentiality agreements. Its target users include IP law firms and multi-patent companies.
“Protecting intellectual property remains a key priority and business requirement for information technology, natural products and biotechnology companies. As companies incorporate AI into their new products, companies from automotive to pharmaceuticals want to protect new inventions and monitor potential infringements by competitors,” said Gradient General Partner Darian Shirazi. “We are excited to partner with the Patlytics team as they leverage recent transformative innovations in artificial intelligence to reinvent the intellectual property protection industry.”
The outfit will use the proceeds to invest in product and AI development and go-to-market operations, aiming to cover all related patent prosecution and litigation workflows. In addition, it plans to strengthen its engineering team. The company employs 11 workers.
“Knowing that navigating the complex landscape of intellectual property can be arduous, the AI-infused patent workflow aims to improve efficiency and provide insights, turning IP protection into a dynamic force shaping the future technology landscape,” Jen said. “We build our technology with data security and privacy in mind, protecting sensitive information throughout the patent lifecycle.”
Other participants in the round included 8VC, Alumni Ventures, Gaingels, Joe Montana’s Liquid 2 Ventures, Position Ventures, Tribe Capital and Vermilion Ventures. Notably, the round also attracted a number of angel backers, including partners at leading law firms, Datadog president Amit Agarwal, Fiscal Note founder Tim Hwang and Tapas Media founder Chang Kim.
