Austin-based Innography landed $6.5M in Series A funding, and a high profile news article in the Austin American Statesman on Monday. Innography has created a product that allows companies to manage their patents. The company counts Hewlett Packard among their first 25 customers. The funding came from Austin Ventures and Hunt Ventures, with Hunt providing their initial seed investment of $800,000 about a year ago.
The market for Business Intelligence (BI) is pretty hot right now, and finding ways to understand, manage, and make money from your intellectual property (IP) portfolio is a hot button for company like Hewlett Packard (one of their first customers). Founder Tyron Stading was most recently at IBM, which has a vast IP portfolio, and that’s where he got the idea for Innography.
“Innography has developed a compelling product that gives organizations an insightful, strategic view of the IP landscape for capitalizing on growth and revenue opportunities,” said Chris Pacitti, general partner at Austin Ventures and Innography board member. “We believe Innography is extremely well positioned for long-term success as they simultaneously enable their customers to do the very same.”
“Innography delivers on an unfulfilled need by organizations to better comprehend, evaluate and leverage the true value of their IP,” said Steve Coffey, managing director at Hunt Ventures and Innography board member. “As the IP landscape continues to evolve, Innography will be able to provide the critical insights and vision these organizations require to remain innovative and successful.”
Innography was founded in 2006 with the awareness that the entire intellectual property ecosystem was changing – IP was becoming a primary currency for many R&D centric companies realizing they could generate millions in revenue by licensing their IP to others. The Innography business intelligence software platform was developed as the optimal solution for companies to address critical business questions pertaining to strategic management of their IP assets.
“The momentum we’ve been experiencing is proof that an IP paradigm shift is taking place,” said Tyron Stading, founder and CTO of Innography. “Organizations are realizing intellectual property is a strategic asset versus something locked away in a file cabinet, and Innography is the key to them discovering untapped possibilities.”
“The overwhelmingly positive reception we’ve received for our product is a testament to the development effort and market validation invested by Tyron and the entire Innography team,” said Rob Lynch, CEO of Innography. “We’re excited to have Austin Ventures and Hunt Ventures on board as we continue expanding our global footprint and industry leadership.”