IndusAge Partners, a venture investor based out of Silicon Valley and India, has invested in India’s first pure-play intellectual property asset management start-up Clairvolex through a Series A funding for an undisclosed valuation.
Through this new round of funding, IndusAge along with a Boston-based IP management software company Anaqua and two other investors has acquired a minority interest in Clairvolex.
Clairvolex, which has its operations currently based in Gurgaon in India and San Jose in the US, focuses on IP asset management services for top research-based technology companies mainly in the area of communication, digital electronics, computer sciences among others.
With this investment deal, Clairvolex has also become the first India-originated company in this space to receive a significant overseas funding.
IP asset management is a newly emerging area in the knowledge process outsourcing business as large research and innovation led companies finds it difficult to manage it in-house both in terms of cost and resources.
The service outsourcing in this high growth area includes the maintenance, utilization and opportunity exploitation of huge volume of intellectual property assets created by large research focused organizations, mostly in the field of information technology, engineering, life sciences among others.
An IP asset management company typically offers a mix of legal, technical and financial solutions to its clients to monetize their IP assets at the optimum level.
The global IP asset management market is valued at around $4.5 billion, based on the high-tech patent filings in English language across the globe, excluding Japan, China, Russia and Korea.
According to Clairvolex founder and managing director Manoj Pillai, the fresh funding will be utilized to expand its US and European operations.
The new round of funding for Clairvolex comes shortly after it signed a strategic partnership with Anaqua, a worldwide provider of IP management software, early this week.
Through this strategic partnership, the two companies will jointly offer IP asset management solutions to customers world-wide and help them leverage and monetize their research and innovation assets.
"This funding, which comes at a time when Clairvolex is transforming from an IP service provider to an integrated IP asset manager, will further accelerate our already impressive growth that was around 60 per cent in the last couple of years," said Pillai.
"Companies large and small have a need to look at IP in a radically different way, as if it were yet another Asset in a corporation. This shift necessitates a comprehensive management of the IP, and opens up many monetization opportunities," said IndusAge managing partner Sriram Viswanathan in an interview with BW Businessworld.
Clairvolex’s services address these needs in a very innovative and cost effective way, he added.
With the new round of funding, IndusAge founder and managing partner Vishwanathan and Anaqua CEO Bob Romeo will now join Clairvolex board. The company was advised on the transaction by McCarter and English and Universal Legal. While, the investors were advised by BMR Legal and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP.
BW Reporters
Unnikrishnan is currently Senior Associate Editor with BW Businessworld at its Mumbai Bureau. During his two decades long journalistic career, he has received several media awards and recognitions. His articles on healthcare, life sciences and intellectual property rights (IPR) have been republished by several international blogs and journals.
