Investors are keeping a careful eye on the recent rise in R&D spending (R&D). Tencent and SoftBank’s Vision Fund II are considered to lead investors in PatSnap because it raised the most recent funding of $300 million in its Series E round.
The Series E fundraising round included participation from Sequoia China, CITIC Industrial Fund (a subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned CITIC Group), Shunwei Capital (founded by Xiaomi co-founder Lei Jun), and the Vertex investing families’ Vertex Growth and Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India.
Further, Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India, which is run by the Vertex family of investors, has put money into the business.
Increasing amounts of capital are being allocated to R&D by companies around the world in an effort to stay ahead of the competition. Therefore, tracking the ROI of R&D is becoming more important than ever.
Among these companies is PatSnap, which is a prime illustration of the type. One of the company’s founders, Jeffrey Tiong, got his start in the medical device industry more than a decade ago, where he learned the value of intellectual property and patents.
Tiong founded PatSnap in Singapore in 2007 with the goal of creating a unified database that would make it easier to do worldwide patent research.
Eventually, Tiong widened the scope of the business to encompass adjacent industries. Newer versions of PatSnap’s software are “innovation intelligence,” as described by Tiong.
To better aid firms in reviewing their R&D strategy, tracking competitors, and finding excellent partners, this software analyzes data surrounding scholarly articles, government R&D grants, and startup fundraising announcements.
While speaking about innovation, Tiong said, “what we found is that many firms treat innovation as a department, a function, or a key performance indicator.” According to our findings, “innovation is viewed as a crucial performance measure” by many businesses.
According to our findings, innovation ranks high on the list of critical success factors for many businesses.
Many companies are looking for people with the skills to research the technological landscape and find out if other companies are developing similar technologies. In today’s world, you can’t possibly accomplish anything without the help of a good friend.
PatSnap’s purchase was finalized after the founder of SoftBank and multimillionaire Masayoshi Son spoke with Tiong for slightly over a quarter of an hour.
Tiong remarked that Son “understands the importance of ideas, intellectual property, and innovation” because he invented and patented a technology that he sold for $1 million while still in his 20s as per PatSnap 300m series softbank wiggersventurebeat.
Tiong told TechCrunch that after obtaining the money, the valuation of PatSnap was “more than $1 billion,” though he would not specify a specific figure.
While the United States is PatSnap’s primary market, China’s growing patent application sector has become increasingly crucial in recent years.
In 1999, China only filed 276 patent applications with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). In 2019, this figure was higher than that of the United States, at 58,990.
The Chinese market might be challenging for software as a service (SaaS) companies to break into since Chinese businesses are more hesitant to invest heavily in software than their Western counterparts. In China, PatSnap operates under the Zhihuiya label.
The company has a sizable base of pleased customers in China, which includes major retail chains, educational institutions, AI firms, and the pharmaceutical industry.
The possession of a big patent portfolio is no assurance that its owner is the foremost expert in the field of technology. Tiong made the interesting observation that compared to China, the United States devotes a larger percentage of its GDP to R&D.
Furthermore, he stated, “the quality of the patents in China is not as good, and many of them are incremental tweaks rather than ground-breaking inventions instagram management services.”
Final Words
PatSnap has 700 workers in the US, EU, Canada, Japan, and China, and the company claims to have customers in more than 50 countries. Tesla, General Electric, Siemens, Dyson, PalPal, Spotify, and Megvii are just some of the well-known companies with which the company has done business.
The newly acquired capital will be used to fund the company’s efforts to expand product development, enhance existing services, expand international sales, and invest in its staff SMM Agency.
