Capital using your assets.
When the portfolio is in order, we structure a loan. Written from BlueIron’s own fund or, for larger deals, syndicated with partner lenders.
What makes a portfolio lendable.
Two conditions, both met. Most of the work of building a lendable portfolio happens long before lending is on the table.
Revenue maps to patents.
Each family covers something the company sells now or will sell. The patents read directly on a revenue stream, yours or a competitor’s, so a reader connects a patent to a revenue line on the income statement without a translation step.
Patents that hold up in court.
Each patent is clearly drawn and carries a clean history with the patent office. Each covers something one competitor does on its own. Competitors, acquirers, and licensees respect that position when they examine the file. You may never sue. What matters is that you could.
The right fit.
A short fit test. If your company sits on the right side of these, the conversation is worth having.
- Revenue at least $5M — most engagements are $20M+.
- Revenue you generate today, and from new products down the line, that maps to your patents. Your own revenue is preferred.
- Competitor revenue from products that use your patents without permission carries value in a loan.
- A financing event, a distribution deal, or a sale conversation is on the horizon, or you want the capital option available.
- A loan is sized to the revenue that maps to your patents.
- Companies building strong products, with IP that supports the investment in them.
Patent-fluent underwriting.
Since 2014, BlueIron has structured and underwritten loans against patent portfolios. Patents are the asset class we know.
Patents are a hard asset class for most asset-backed lenders. Valuation is opaque. Enforcement is uncertain. Disposal in a workout is harder still. Most patent portfolios sit on the balance sheet as an expense line and never serve as collateral the company can put to work.
We built this practice to underwrite patents. When a portfolio comes for a loan, we know what to examine: ownership history, how patents map to revenue, and patent quality. These are our working vocabulary. The diligence moves at the speed of the deal, because nobody is learning the asset class on your time.
This is not loan-to-own. BlueIron writes loans to solid operating companies whose growth pays the loan back. Our incentive is for the asset and the company to grow. Loans are structured for long-term relationships.
Capital comes from two sources. BlueIron has its own fund for loans sized to the practice, and larger deals are syndicated with partner lenders who trust how we evaluate portfolios. The borrower sees one practice on both sides, whoever writes the check.
Lenders who know patents.
Patents are central to our practice. They are the asset class behind our loans.
Diligence at the speed of the deal.
We know what to examine, and the diligence moves without a quarter-long handoff while someone learns the asset class.
Single point of contact.
One practice on both sides: diligence and structuring.
Long-term relationships.
As your company grows, so does the financing, with capacity to $100M and beyond as the asset supports the next step.
How a conversation starts.
Three steps. The first one often answers the question.
A thirty-minute call.
We learn enough about the business and the portfolio to tell you whether the conditions are met, or to name what would need to be true first. Either way you leave the call with a clear next step.
An assessment of whether the conditions are met, with no commitment.
Analysis of your IP and the business.
Family-by-family review of the patents against the two requirements: patents mapped to revenue, and patents that hold up in court. A conversation about the business: what the company sells, where the revenue is concentrated, and what growth looks like. We evaluate both sides of the asset, the business and the paper.
A clear understanding of what we could underwrite today, and the path to a larger loan.
Structure the loan.
When the conditions are met and the business wants the capital, we structure the loan, sized to the asset, the revenue it covers, and the use of proceeds the company has named.
A loan. Coordinated, underwritten, closed.
The terms (loan size, advance rate, tenor, and covenants) are shaped at structuring against the underlying portfolio, so each number reflects your company’s own assets.
Who runs it.
Capital that wants the company to grow.
Outside patent counsel to Fortune 10 companies earlier in the career.
In-house IP counsel at an IP-heavy venture-backed startup with around a hundred patents under management, running the docket and follow-on application strategy from inside the company.
Since: years of IP-collateralized loans structured and underwritten as the lender. Working with patent portfolios from the lender’s side, where ownership history, the link between patents and revenue, and survival through a workout are the unit of analysis.
Engineer first, patent attorney second. Registered with the USPTO. Author of Investing in Patents. Host of the Patent Myths podcast.
Thirty minutes. See what your IP assets can support as collateral.
We learn the business, look at the patents, and tell you what we could lend against today. You leave with the next step either way.