IP Startup Brainbase Raises $8M From Investors
Brainbase, the technology platform that helps companies manage any licensing, partnership or sponsorship agreement from end-to-end in a single platform, announced an $8 million Series A financing led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Nosara Capital with participation from Alpha Edison, Struck Capital, Bonfire Ventures, FJ Labs, Tera Ventures, Sterling Road, Spencer Lazar, Michael Stoppelman, former senior vice president of engineering at Yelp, Jenny Fleiss, co-founder of Rent The Runway, and David Fraga, president of InVision.
As the creator of the IP licensing platform Brainbase Assist, the company aims to use this funding to build a payments feature for licensors to expedite payments from licensees, as well as build Marketplace, a new solution to showcase, connect, and close deals with globally recognized and emerging brands, celebrities, athletes and influencers entirely online.
“We need to stay focused on building the best platform for brands that own and license their IP,” said Brainbase co-founder and CEO Nate Cavanaugh. “With a strong bench of investors and advisors who believe in our vision to make the intellectual property industry more open, efficient and accessible, we are prepared for our next stage of growth. In 2020, Brainbase plans to nearly double in size, making key hires across sales, product, and engineering in the U.S. and Europe.”
Bessemer Venture Partners, the company’s lead investor, has a history of investing in iconic technology companies, such as DocuSign, LinkedIn, Shopify, Twitch, and Yelp, and Nosara invests in online marketplaces around the globe.
"We’re incredibly impressed with how quickly Brainbase has built industry-leading software tools to help brands more efficiently manage and monetize their intellectual property,” said Ian Loizeaux, founding partner at Nosara Capital. “The core Assist platform is being used by top global brands, which gives Brainbase a significant advantage in building a marketplace to connect the fragmented landscape of licensors and licensees."
Brainbase has been a part of Estonian venture capital firm Tera Ventures’ portfolio since 2019, when they led the first round of investments for Brainbase. Previously, Tera Ventures has invested in such successful Estonian start-up companies as Realeyes, GrabCAD, Cleveron, Monese, Jobbatical, Scoro, Snackable AI and others.
The round follows a successful time of growth for Brainbase, with recent customer acquisitions including kathy ireland Worldwide, MDR Brand Management, BuzzFeed and Bonnier. These new brands join existing customers such as Sanrio, the global lifestyle brand best known for pop icon Hello Kitty, SYBO Games and other globally-recognized brands on Brainbase’s roster. Kathy Ireland has also joined Brainbase as the Global Chief Brand Ambassador.
Founded in 2016 by Nate Cavanaugh, Karl Johan Vallner and Nikolai Tolkatshjov, Brainbase is a technology company that helps globally-recognized brands manage and monetize their intellectual property. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles and is backed by leading investors in San Francisco, LA, New York, and Europe. Follow @Brainbase and learn more at brainbase.com.
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