Tradespace Secures $4.2 Million in Funding to Unlock $1 Trillion In Unrealized IP Revenue with AI-powered IP Management Platform


  • Unlocked over $100 million in IP commercialization revenue for customers including America’s Frontier Fund, BAE Systems and the Department of Defense
  • Domain-specific LLM identifies high-margin monetization opportunities, shifting IP from a cost center to a revenue driver
  • Trained on the largest set of IP and innovation data to help IP owners evaluate new inventions and generate higher-quality IP while reducing spend on outside counsel

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 15, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Tradespace Inc. today revealed the future of intellectual property (IP) with the release of its AI-powered IP Management Platform, created to unlock the $1 Trillion in latent IP value. The company also announced $4.2 million in seed funding led by Eniac Ventures with participation from Abstract Ventures, Amplo VC and Scrum Ventures, bringing the total raised to $5.2 million. The new capital 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.

“IP has long been one of our economy’s most valuable assets, but it’s also been one of the most underutilized,” said Alec Sorensen, founder and CEO of Tradespace. “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.”

With breakthrough technology and a bold vision for the industry, Tradespace has already generated over $100M 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. 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.

“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,” said Scott Asmus, Chief IP Counsel at BAE Systems.

Alec Sorensen founded Tradespace in 2019 after spending years in management consulting, working with Fortune 500 companies, private equity and government labs to analyze and commercialize their IP. He saw first-hand the challenges nearly every organization faces in understanding their IP. While IP now accounts for 90% of the S&P 500’s total valuation, companies rarely commercialize it. Instead of driving groundbreaking innovations, most IP is trapped on the shelf, gathering dust.

After helping clients realize hundreds of millions of dollars by deploying this underutilized IP into markets like cleantech, satellite communications, and transportation, Alec 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. Underpinning all of this is the belief that the technologies to solve the world’s most critical challenges already exist. With Tradespace, finding and accessing the IP underpinning those technologies and driving innovation across the economy is finally possible.

Tim Young, founding partner at Eniac Ventures and a patent attorney and former IP licensing attorney at Morrison & Foerster, shared that “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.”

Enabling the Future of IP Commercialization

Tradespace empowers IP leaders to build, manage and commercialize high-value IP portfolios. 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. With Tradespace, IP leaders can confidently deliver on their mission to create lasting value for the business.

The Tradespace Platform:

  • Automates the process of evaluating new invention disclosures by searching for prior art so organizations get higher quality patents faster and cheaper
  • Identify crown jewels, gaps and deadweights across an IP portfolio so owners can develop a better IP strategy
  • Creates new revenue opportunities from IP portfolios through monetization, partnership, financing and M&A

About Tradespace

Tradespace Inc. is a venture-backed software company that uses AI to enable organizations to build higher-quality intellectual property portfolios, evaluate new inventions, manage complex patent strategies and discover high-value licensing opportunities. Tradespace’s AI-powered IP Commercialization Platform reduces the time and money IP teams spend researching IP while uncovering new opportunities to create value from their portfolios through commercialization, partnership, financing and M&A. For more information, visit https://www.tradespace.io/. Follow the company on LinkedIn and X.

Media Contacts:

Jill Reed or Jessica Jaffe, Sift Communications for Tradespace, tradespace@siftpr.com.