How startups and SMEs should think about IP:
An investor’s* perspective
*Neoklis A. Lazanas, is an accomplished entrepreneur, and is one of Europe’s most active venture capital and angel Investor, with investments ranging from pre-seed through to Series D. He founded Arclif Group AG in Switzerland and previously built fourteen companies from scratch, with his first two exits in 2013 and 2015. Mr. Lazanas also has over a decade of industrial expertertise through his involvement in blue chip companies, like Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Lear Corporation and AMTEK Group. After foundation of Arclif Ventures in 2012 he invested at Pre IPO phase at Spotify, MEV Electric Cars and Napster. His investment reaches a valuation of 3,5 Billion Euro according to Big 4 estimations.
How startups and SMEs should think about IP:
An investor`s perspective
It’s all about the exit strategy; how you and your investors go about getting a return on the time, energy and money invested in your business. Thinking about exits is important; after all, that’s when most of the returns are realized – both for entrepreneurs and investors.
Over the last 15 years, first as an entrepreneur and now as an investor, I’ve seen many award-winning ventures end up in the global startup graveyard. Why? In large part, because very few of them secured intellectual property (IP) rights to protect their business assets. That’s why startups and SMEs need to pay attention to, or at the very least, think about IP at the earliest opportunity.
IP: a bundle of rights that can support your business
When thinking about IP rights, patents often come to mind first, but they also include copyright rights, trademarks and Trade secrets. That is the reason that we founded PAPA Law (Patent Attorneys & Patent Angels) in Switzerland to support young and ambitious start-up companies from scratch. The initial idea came up as we identified that young start-up companies securing some funds to engage patent attorneys but running out of funds until the product is developed. PAPA Law is in the position to support young high-tech start up companies in protecting the different aspects of product and services.
Trade secrets and/or patents protect inventions or new technical solutions, copyright and design rights protect original creative content and trademarks (and designs) protect and help build your brand. PAPA Law supports through the whole value chain from the company building phase up to the pre seed, seed and A,B,C,D series.
IP: is a key consideration for investors
Intellectual Property rights are key economic assets in today’s knowledge economy. That’s the reason why startups and SMEs need to build an IP strategy in the early stages of their development.
From our point of view, PAPA Law is the perfect tool to consider all aspects of securities and IP rights with a fully dedicated team and fundamental contacts to major international VC`s.
As investors, my colleagues and I tend to examine a company from its inception. That’s when they make many promises with little evidence to back them up. In the modern economy, IP assets often drive current and future revenues, so investors like to see that entrepreneurs have integrated IP rights into their business plans. Evidence of some kind of convincing approach to IP will, at the very least, mean that companies are better aligned with investors on the big question of how to sell the company for billions of dollars one day