In various seats as a big law attorney, general counsel, chief IP counsel, startup founder and even a federal court law clerk and USPTO committee member, I've spent decades working with patents from virtually every angle. I’ve harvested ideas for patent filings and shaped patent strategy; hired, fired and built teams of patent attorneys around the world; created, built and sold tools for patent professionals; bought, sold, licensed and litigated patents; testified before Congress and got passed patent reform, formed industry coalitions around patents, took a patent startup public, and founded a patent nonprofit.
I know this market intimately - the players, the exits, the challenges, the deeply skeptical nature of patent professionals. I know it perhaps too well, which creates an almost unrealistically high bar. After years of meeting with AI patent startups and hearing feedback from my network, all roads kept pointing to Solve Intelligence.
So when I reached back out to founder & CEO Chris Parsonson in October 2025, I told him something I don't say often: "There are companies and founders where you regret having passed on joining a round. Perhaps it was because I knew too much about the patent space. As we continue to look at what is happening in the space and my patent attorney friends (law firms and in-house) look for solutions, I keep coming back to Solve." We reconnected and aligned on goals and how OpCo can accelerate them with our model, and were fortunate to join their latest round. Today, Solve Intelligence announced their $40M Series B, which we’re participating in alongside Visionaries Club, 20VC, Thompson Reuters, Y Combinator, and founders from Canva, Deel, Ironclad, Base44, Cleo, Hugging Face, Pigment, and others.
The Company
Solve Intelligence is the AI platform for the $200B+ patent industry. Founded in 2023 by CEO Dr. Chris Parsonson, CTO Angus Parsonson, and Chief Research Officer Dr. Sanj Ahilan, Solve provides AI software that automates technical legal work for patent professionals. The platform handles patent drafting, prosecution, office action responses, continuations and divisionals, and global patent filings. More than 400 IP teams across six continents now use Solve, including law firms like DLA Piper and Perkins Coie, and corporate IP departments at companies like Siemens and Avery Dennison.
Why You Should Pay Attention
The amount companies are willing to pay for patent work hasn't changed much in decades. The same patent application I paid outside counsel $7,500 for at Cisco fifteen years ago is still the same amount companies are willing to pay today. But the pressure on patent teams has intensified dramatically. The patent landscape has only gotten more crowded and full of landmines. Law firms face pricing pressure while trying to maintain quality. In-house teams are being asked to do more with less. The industry has been stuck with tools that were built for a different era, when most of the work was manual.
Solve is attacking the hardest, most time-intensive part of the workflow with purpose-built AI that actually understands both the technical and legal nuances required for patent work. This isn't a wrapper around ChatGPT or a general legal AI tool adapted for patents. It's genuinely sophisticated technology built specifically for this domain, and the results speak for themselves. Patent attorneys report 60-80% time savings while maintaining quality. The company has grown ARR more than tenfold since last year to reach eight figures, all while remaining profitable and having more cash in the bank than they've raised since inception!
The Details
Solve's platform covers the full patent preparation and prosecution workflow. Customers use it for collecting invention disclosures from inventors, drafting complete patent applications, responding to office actions from patent offices worldwide, handling continuation and divisional applications, and coordinating global patent filings across jurisdictions. The software supports all major technical domains, from life sciences with biological sequences and chemical structures to software and hardware patents.
What sets Solve apart technically is the team's combination of AI researchers from institutions like Cambridge, Oxford, UCL, and Imperial College London with patent attorneys who've worked at top firms including Hoffmann Eitle, Quarles & Brady, Dentons, Fish & Richardson, and others. This blend shows up in the product, and a key reason for Solve's growth and widespread adoption has been its focus on keeping customer data secure and confidential - this is the most sensitive IP for companies and they don’t use customer data to train their models.
The platform's growth metrics demonstrate genuine product-market fit:
- 400+ IP teams across six continents
- 60% law firm customers, 40% corporate IP departments
- Average user actions per week increased 265% since Series A
- Customers reporting up to 80% efficiency gains
- Lean, fast-building team – Profitable with more cash in bank than total capital raised
Alongside this Series B, Solve is launching 'Charts', a new product for patent litigation and high-volume IP analysis. Charts generates customizable claim charts including invalidity and standard-essential patent charts, freedom-to-operate analyses, infringement mappings, claim construction analyses, and portfolio-level reviews. It includes full citation support and exposed AI reasoning to maximize transparency and trust in the output.
Why We're Invested
Chris, Angus, and Sanj have earned genuine trust and enthusiasm from patent attorneys. When DLA Piper partner Larissa Bifano says "When we looked at Solve, they were so far above what other people are doing in terms of their technical expertise and the problem they're trying to solve. That's why we went with Solve," that matters. When Britten Sessions at Zilka-Kotab reports "I can draft a full non provisional application at similar quality to what I normally draft but with 60-80% time savings," that's transformational.
The founding team is exceptional. Chris combines a PhD in AI from UCL with publications in top conferences and experience at organizations like Dyson, The Alan Turing Institute, and InstaDeep. Sanj brings a PhD in AI from UCL's Gatsby Unit, work on Huawei's R&D team, and experience developing AI trading strategies that deployed millions in capital. Angus built greenfield trading platforms at Brevan Howard that scaled to millions of trades per day. Together, they've created something that balances technical sophistication with practical utility in a way this industry hasn't seen before.
The market opportunity extends well beyond where Solve is today. They're becoming the collaborative platform where in-house and outside counsel work together across the entire patent process. The launch of Charts expands their addressable market into litigation, portfolio analysis, and strategic IP work. With 400+ teams already using the platform and strong expansion within existing customers, Solve is positioned to become the AI-native operating system for intellectual property.
What’s Next
Learn more about Solve Intelligence at solveintelligence.com, and reach out to chris@solveintelligence.com to connect with the team. They’re also hiring across engineering, product, and go-to-market roles.
