A former intellectual property lawyer aims to help colleagues reap the benefits of agent-based AI.
Four years ago, an intellectual property (IP) lawyer and NLPatent co-founder and CEO Stephanie Curcio decided to make life easier for her colleagues using artificial intelligence (AI).
Curcio knew that finding relevant patent documents using keyword searches was difficult and time-consuming, often failing to capture the nuances of the language of inventions. So she teamed up with co-founder and CTO James Stonehill—an experienced software engineer—to develop a better way.
“Our vision is for NLPatent to become the infrastructure, the operating system, that underpins patent work in the age of artificial intelligence.”
Stephanie Curcio
NLPatent
“I was persuaded to leave my law practice because I saw an opportunity to create a business around new technology that was obviously applicable to the work I was doing as a lawyer,” Curcio told BetaKit.
Since then, the Toronto-based legal tech startup has developed what Curcio calls a “full-fledged research platform.” It claims that NLPatent helps more than 2,000 intellectual property, research and development (R&D) professionals—at leading intellectual property law firms, Fortune 500 companies, and universities—make better, faster decisions using natural language processing.
“Today, NLPatent is much more than just a search tool… We have taken the concept of easily finding relevant documents to the next level,” Curcio said.
That progress helped NLPatent secure $3 million in new funding led by two new Silicon Valley investors, Draper Associates and Mighty Capital. The all-equity and seed round, which closed in September, was supported by existing backers including Miami-based The LegalTech Fund, Toronto-based Storytime Capital and Calgary-based The51.
Curcio said NLPatent intends to use the money to expand its presence in North America and Europe. The company is also looking to accelerate its product development plans, which include developing artificial intelligence capabilities and creating “fully agent-based workflows that perform complex patent tasks.”
CONNECTED: Clio receives US$500 million Series G after completion of vLex acquisition
“It’s an exciting and sexy thing that we’re creating,” Curcio said. “We've done boring things so far, but in my opinion, you have to do boring things to qualify to win the sexy and exciting things.”
NLPatent's AI-powered patent search and analysis software includes modules for searching, monitoring and visualizing patent documents and trends based on proprietary, domain-adapted, broad-language models. Curcio said the company helps organizations gather business intelligence from these documents to make more informed decisions about intellectual property or research and development.
“Our vision is for NLPatent to become the infrastructure, the operating system, that underpins patent work in the age of artificial intelligence,” Curcio said.
NLPatent previously raised C$1.4 million in funding in a US$1 million seed equity round in October 2023, led by Storytime with participation from The LegalTech Fund and The51, as well as $400,000 simple future equity agreements. Curcio said NLPatent plans to raise a larger Series A at a later date.
AI already disrupting the legal industry in a variety of ways, and investors seem to have caught on: Amid the AI boom, funding for legal tech companies has surged this year. Law360 found legal tech funding grew 80 percent year-over-year in the first quarter.
RELATED: 'This Is War': How Alexi hopes to dominate the legal AI tech market
Earlier this week, Burnaby-based legal technology firm Clio announced that it has closed a $500 million Series G, $350 million in debt and a $1 billion deal to buy vLex as it makes a big bet that AI will play a “fundamental” role in the future of legal software.
“[Patent] “Professionals are no longer sitting on the sidelines wondering if AI will take off—the train has already left the station,” Curcio said.
Curcio acknowledged that activity in the field of artificial intelligence for intellectual property is gaining momentum and said it is “great to see him as a pioneer.” Last month, “Silicon Valley Confusion” announced a tool aimed at simplifying patent research. Earlier this year, New York-based Patlytics shut down $14 million Series A to expand its proprietary patent analysis platform, and Delaware-based Solve Intelligence received $12 million Series A to stimulate such efforts.
The CEO said she believes NLPatent's edge and the reputation it has built in that patent space will continue to set the startup apart as more players develop AI for IP solutions.
“We had to go through a lot of pain in the early days to create something that would live up to the promises it was supposed to make,” Curcio added.
Image courtesy of NLPatent.
