An AI Software company was delivering Software-as-a-Service solutions that automated complex and time-consuming back-office tasks. The Company was continuing to invest in software development which was resulting in a fast cash-burn that it could not fund in the short term. The Company’s customers included one of the UK’s biggest employers and a publicly listed entity.
The Company’s advisors had rightly assumed these customers would be significantly impacted by a loss of software service and therefore may be potentially interested in being part of the restructuring discussions.
Metis Partners was engaged by the advisors who needed a clear separation of the IP used by key customers, ring-fencing of the IP, mapping out which IP assets were critical to which revenue streams.
We were also asked to provide an assessment of how well-protected and transferable the IP would be in an accelerated M&A scenario, or should the worst happen, an IP Valuation determining how much would likely be recovered from the sale of the IP assets from an insolvency process.
The advisors had identified parties interested in acquiring parts of the business, but some platform IP assets were being used across the business and this complicating factor was preventing deal completion.
Our Metisology® approach ensured we identified all the IP assets that vested in the business, assessed the extent of these assets, and how well they were protected. We mapped each IP asset to the Company’s services and to the related revenue.
We identified appropriate “IP Bundles” that could be packaged and sold to different interested parties. We secured buyers for different parts of the business based on the most important IP assets that we determined were critical in driving the related revenues.
In addition to providing IP Valuation advice, we supported the successful marketing and sale of the IP assets, facilitating the extensive IP buyer diligence that was necessary to complete the deals with the sale of first-generation IP to one party and second-generation IP to another, protecting jobs in the process.
IP Assets Sold – Software, Organizational Knowledge.
