TrademarkVision acquired by US unicorn Clarivate Analytics

I’m thrilled to share the news that Trademark Vision was acquired by Clarivate Analytics (see AFR article). As background, Trademark Vision helps governments, businesses and lawyers to make brand protection possible for thousands of users everyday.

I’m extremely proud of Sandra Mau (founder, CEO), Cameron Mitchell (co-founder) and the Trademark Vision team. Sandra was the first founder we backed in our first fund. I remember meeting Sandra back in 2013 when the company was still in its infancy. Based in Brisbane, and a spinout of Data61 (then NICTA), there were great ideas, some promising technology but not a lot of customers.

The seed round (the only investment round) came together quickly from Right Click Capital (Sydney), Scale Investors (Melbourne) and Creative Enterprises Australia (Brisbane) on the strength of Sandra, the team and their technology. Fast forward a few short years and the team have built a world leading artificial intelligence company recognised internationally as a leader in their field. Trademark Vision won best AI startup in the world last year at the prestigious AIconics Awards held at AI Summit in San Francisco, and have a client list including Facebook, IBM, IP Australia and the European Union IP office, to name a few.

Building a startup is hard. Growing a company is hard. Getting a successful exit is even harder. I have only thanks and respect to Sandra, Cameron and the team. I’d also like to thank the board for their guidance, support and help in the Trademark Vision journey with special thanks to Lauren Melton, Anna Rooke and James Rees.

When we raised our first fund (Sydney Seed Fund, 2013), we indicated to our investors we’d target a three-times multiple return for our fund. Although we’ve been in the technology industry for many years, being our first fund, our investors took a leap of faith on us. I’ll never forget the experience of sharing the news of Trademark Vision’s acquisition with our early investors and supporters and letting them know that we’d achieved our target and they would be receiving a significant distribution (with more to come)!

As there are more success stories and exits from Australia, I look forward to meeting and working with more great founders wishing to go global faster and investors keen to be part of the story.