London and San Francisco-based legal tech Solve Intelligence has raised a $40m Series B to develop its AI software for patent applications.
The round was co-led by Visionaries and 20VC. Other investors include Thomson Reuters, Y Combinator and Operator Collective, alongside the founders of Tinder, Deel, Ironclad, Canva, Pigment and Hugging Face.
Founded in 2023, Solve Intelligence is working on a “co-pilot for IP law.” It collects ideas from inventors, drafts patent applications and handles correspondence with patent offices. The company sells its software to both in-house legal teams and outside counsel.
Solve Intelligence says it now sells to over 400 IP teams, including legal firms DLA Piper and Perkins Coie and the in-house teams at companies like Siemens and Avery Dennison.
Solve says it has seen its annual recurring revenue (ARR) increase tenfold since last year to an eight-figure sum — though it did not share a specific figure.
The new round comes six months after the company’s Series A, a $12m round led by 20VC. That followed a $3m seed round led by Y Combinator; Solve Intelligence was part of the 2023 cohort.
Solve Intelligence’s team includes AI researchers from the University of Cambridge, Oxford, UCL and Imperial College London alongside patent attorneys from firms including Hoffmann Eitle, Quarles & Brady, Dentons and Reddie & Grose.
The company is part of a growing cohort of legal tech startups hoping to streamline legal workflows. VCs have funnelled €833m into the sector across 84 funding rounds this year so far, according to Sifted data, over double the €417m picked up across 82 rounds in 2024.
It’s not all been rosy, however. London-HQ’d legal tech Robin AI, one of the best-funded in the sector, recently made dozens of staff redundant after struggling to close a $50m funding round.
