Finnish trademark search company TrademarkNow has received funding worth $3.5 million from investor Balderton Capital.
Since it launched in March 2013, the nine-man company has cleared more than 5,000 marks from 16 registries, including in the US and the EU.
It said the investment will help to strengthen the company’s presence globally, allowing it to scour registries in all EU member states as well as in 10 “major” territories by the end of the year.
Mikael Kolehmainen, TrademarkNow’s chief executive, said: “To have Balderton join our roster of investors is a tremendous validation of the technology we are creating and recognition of the opportunity we have to fill a hugely outmoded market.”
The trademark industry has been “ripe for reinvention for many years”, added Daniel Waterhouse, a partner at Balderton Capital, after “having failed to keep up with the technological change and innovation that we are seeing across the rest of the enterprise software market”.
TrademarkNow claims that the “search, tracking and protection elements” of the trademark industry are estimated to be worth more than $3 billion.