The Company was established in 2000 in San Diego and provides business card printing and business card management services through its proprietary software. It has grown to become a major provider of business cards in the US with customers including governmental agencies, Fortune 500 companies, and business card resellers.
Metis Partners was engaged by the Company to value its IP portfolio in preparation for it pursuing an exit strategy. The Company had invested significantly in a scalable digital platform and numerous IP assets forming a digital real estate, which could be used as part of an effective SEO strategy in the sector. The Company was concerned that the current business valuation would fail to recognize its investment in IP and wanted to ensure the full IP value was included in any subsequent exit negotiations.
Our Metisology® approach ensured that all the IP assets were captured in this business. It operates four unique business streams, each relying on a different ‘IP bundle’.
The Company created an extensive bank of proprietary stock photography and business card templates which provided its customers exclusive access to photographs and artwork produced by professional artists around the world. In addition, the Company had developed a proprietary sales and marketing management system with circa 2m marketing contacts and targets. The Company actively utilizes this database to conduct marketing campaigns, sending out circa 150k marketing emails per day. The Company invested significantly in developing a scalable software solution designed primarily for large corporates enabling them to easily order, amend and reorder business cards all from their own Human Resource Management Systems, using the Company’s proprietary API technology.
We valued the Company’s entire IP portfolio, highlighting the IP assets that were underpinning the material revenues and securing competitive advantage. By mapping each critical IP asset directly to products and services and then to both historical revenues and forecast cash flows, provided the Company with the independent evidence it needs to ensure its IP value is included in future price negotiations.
IP assets valued - Proprietary Software Platform, Database of Images, Extensive Organizational Knowledge, Brand & Reputation
