Data company PatSnap has closed its Series D round at $38m (£28.3m), bringing the total it has raised to over $100m.
PatSnap was founded in Singapore in 2007, but the company is now global, with offices in the US and China, and has based its HQ in London since 2012.
The round was led by global investors Shunwei Capital and Sequoia Capital, who also led the company’s Series C investment in November 2016.
PatSnap provides research and development (R&D) analytics to over 8,000 global clients; from car makers to pharmaceutical companies and IP specialists.
R&D datasets are useful for analysing tech trends, driving innovation, market planning, competitor intelligence and maximising return on IP assets, the company states.
Jeffrey Tiong, founder and CEO of PatSnap, said: “We have recently made a number of strategic leadership appointments across US, Europe and Asia, and find ourselves in a very strong position to grow into different countries and industries, and develop even more innovative solutions for our clients.
“We will also be opening our second North American office in Toronto to better service our clients on the East coast, and to support the huge amount of innovation that is taking place there,” he added.
Its’ database consists of over 125 million patents to help clients navigate the patent auditing process, as well as mitigating the risk of infringement and litigation that comes with large R&D investments.
The Software-as-a-Service platform uses machine learning and natural language processing to analyse the data.
Steven Ji, partner at Sequoia Capital, commented on the decision to invest: “Since our initial involvement in PatSnap’s Series C round, we have seen the company double its global employee base and on-board new clients at a phenomenal rate, demonstrating that there is real appetite in the market for tools which can help companies accelerate their rate of innovation.”
Mr. Tuck Lye Koh, founder and CEO of Shunwei Capital, said: “The challenges of developing, maintaining and making sense of such large and complex datasets are very strong barriers to entry, and what PatSnap has been able to achieve in such a short period of time is remarkable
“We wanted to re-invest because we firmly believe in the company’s vision, and because of the massive potential for further growth as the company expands into new markets and geographies,” he concluded.