Harnessing the power of an intellectual property portfolio to attract investment

Are you planning on attracting investment for your business in the near future? Then you’ll want to harness the powers of this not-so-secret weapon – an intellectual property portfolio.

We know, another point to add to the never-ending to-do list for prepping for investment, but we promise you this isn’t one you want to miss out on – this will be a HUGE game changer for you.

Now this isn’t anything ground-breaking, new, or innovative…intellectual property protection has been around for years and years and years, but you’d be surprised how many business owners miss out on this key factor when getting investor ready.

By taking a strategic approach to IP strategy, your business can protect its essential assets AND drive revenue in a cost-effective way (which is always a bonus, right?!).

Shall we dive straight into this topic?

Firstly, what is an intellectual property portfolio?

An intellectual property portfolio (or IP portfolio for short) is essentially a collection of your intellectual property rights, allowing for better protection of all aspects of your business.

It’s a collection of the intellectual property you or your business owns, like any registered trademarks, copyrighted content, patents, design rights etc.

Intellectual property rights (whether you’re looking to attract investment or not) are an incredibly valuable asset for a company to have. Just like any physical assets, you can leverage IP in SO many ways.

What are the benefits of building up a brilliant IP portfolio?

Now obviously here we’re talking predominantly about investment, but first let me cover some general benefits that come with building up a bank of protected intellectual property for your business:

Your intellectual property portfolio can act as a revenue driver in itself, acting as another form of cashflow entering your business

That’s right! Registering trademarks and creating copyrightable works (for example) can literally bring more cash into your business. You can license out or even sell IP to third parties.

It builds up your reputation

A business that owns a super strong, super brilliant IP portfolio is going to end up receiving loads of ‘street cred'

It protects your intangible assets

So other business can’t come along and steal your branding or content. It essentially warns off any competitors

Now let’s move on to the investment side of things:

Investors LOVE a protected company

We’ve witnessed this first hand by being involved in investment processes. Investors will almost ALWAYS choose the company that has IP protection over the one that doesn’t. Why? Because a business with IP protection is MUCH more valuable. Investors know that IP = profits

This gives you the competitive edge

Like we said above, an investor will choose you over your competitor if you have a strong IP portfolio and they don’t. Investors want solid assurance that your ideas and content are protected before they sign. Protecting your IP ensures that your unique offering can’t be capitalised upon by others (unless you give them permission to do so – coming back to that cashflow benefit)

It proves to prospective investors that you mean business

You could have the greatest business idea in the world, the next biggest innovation, but if you can’t protect it, investors won’t take you seriously. Having that robust IP portfolio heightens your chances of being taken seriously. Taking the time to protect your IP sends a strong message to future investors

It means you have the basis to scale up quickly, which investors like

Investors love businesses that have the ability to scale and grow quickly. Having protected IP majorly lowers legal risk when it comes to quick scaling, which is a huge plus from the investors’ point of view

What IP should you be protecting?

In short, ALL of it, although we know that isn’t always possible.

One of the most powerful forms of IP protection is registering your trademarks, aka protecting the branding side of your business. Initially, we’d recommend registering your business name and potentially your logo too. For example, if you have an app that is named differently to your business name, this should be trademarked too.

When it comes to copyright protection, you should be including copyright / IP clauses in all relevant contracts (i.e., client contracts, supplier agreements, manufacturing agreements, SaaS contracts etc). You should also include a short copyright disclaimer on your website and in any marketing material used by you. Copyright protection falls down to ‘telling the world’ that you own it!

You can also use NDAs in certain circumstances to protect your IP. For example, if you’re getting any third parties involved in the process.

How can we help?

Here at Jamieson Law, we can work with you to get all of your legal ducks in a row prior to attracting investment which gives you the best possible chance of winning over investors and gaining the funding you desire.

If you want a firm that can help make your business as attractive as possible regarding investment, that assists with the due diligence stage, the drafting and reviewing of your documentation, building that all important IP portfolio, and getting that investment over the line all whilst offering a friendly, efficient, and transparent approach, get in touch!

Our legal team are currently offering completely free, no obligation legal advice calls. This could be your chance to find out if we’re the firm you want to work with to cover your investment legals. You can book in a call by clicking right here.