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IP co-pilota startup using artificial intelligence to modernize intellectual property management today announced it has raised $4.2 million in seed funding led by Salesforce Companies And Foreword Ventureswith the participation of NextGen Companies And Notation.
Founded by AI experts with more than 1,000 combined patents, the Tennessee-based company aims to streamline the way companies discover and protect innovative ideas by analyzing internal communications and documents in real time.
“Everyone is an inventor,” said Austin Walters, CEO of IP Copilot, in an exclusive interview with VentureBeat. “Engineers are busier than ever and our goal is to minimize the friction between ideas and patents so that more innovators become inventors.”
Unlike other AI tools focused on patent drafting, IP Copilot emphasizes early discovery by integrating with platforms such as Slim And Jira to identify potentially patentable ideas as they arise in daily work conversations.
How AI is boosting the workflow of legal IP teams
“At a large company, one IP advisor can be responsible for 10,000 employees. You can’t possibly read all the Slacks that are available to you every day, all your Jira tickets, and all the confluence pages that change,” explains Jason Harrier, who recently joined IP Copilot as founder and general counsel after serving as head of IP at Plaid. “Our tool gives patent teams the superpowers to actually read everything available to them and automatically categorize the best patent candidates.”
The company’s approach combines traditional machine learning with large language models, prioritizing accuracy over pure automation. “About 60% is traditional machine learning,” says Harrier. “We use what I think is the best AI for what It does it well, and where to use large language models she work very well.”
To address privacy concerns, the system only monitors public channels and can be deployed within the enterprise’s own cloud environment. “With us, everything is a first-party system,” Walters emphasizes. “We do not send communications to a third party.”
Enterprise IP management faces AI transformation
The funding comes at a crucial time for enterprise IP management. As AI innovation accelerates, companies are struggling to effectively identify and protect intellectual property. While most AI startups in the industry focus on automating patent drafting, IP Copilot’s emphasis on early discovery could change the way companies build their patent portfolios.
The startup’s roadmap suggests broader ambitions. Plans include expanding into trade secret management and introducing natural language interfaces for portfolio analysis. These steps could help make IP Copilot a comprehensive IP intelligence platform, rather than just a legal technology tool.
But perhaps the company’s most striking innovation is not technological, but philosophical. In a landscape full of AI companies promising to replace human expertise, IP Copilot has chosen a different path. “AI is not going to take your job,” says Harrier, “but a lawyer using AI can take your job.”
For patent professionals watching the AI revolution unfold, that distinction could make all the difference.
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