Your engineers should be building.
Not reading patents.
Start-IP gives every startup the same patent intelligence as the best-funded legal departments — regardless of runway, round, or budget.
The Problem
The system is broken. On purpose.
Patent intelligence has been gatekept by price for decades. That ends here.
47-page patent documents
Engineers lose days deciphering legal language written in legally-English, spiritually-ancient-Latin. IP research kills creative momentum at the worst possible time.
The price of knowing
Traditional FTO analysis is priced like specialist surgery — out of reach for the founders who need it most, and billed to companies that already have a dedicated IP counsel.
Search tools aren't answers
Existing platforms return lists of patents and expect you to have an IP specialist interpret them. Most founding teams don't. The data exists — the expertise to act on it doesn't.
Two Products
Everything you need to ship fearless
Technology Discovery
Ask a research question. Get a deep state-of-the-art synthesis from thousands of patents — in the time it takes to drink a coffee. Know the landscape before you build.
"What is the current state of the art in solid-state electrolytes for lithium batteries?"
FTO Analysis
Describe your technology. A multi-layer ML pipeline maps each functional element of your implementation against our patent corpus using high-dimensional vector embeddings — far more precise than keyword search. Risk levels P0→P3, design-around options, strategic directions.
How it works
From description to risk report in minutes
Paste your technology description. Watch the pipeline match, score, and converge — live.
EP3142301A1
Electrode composition method
US11234567B2
Thermal management system
WO2021098765
Solid electrolyte interface
US10987654B2
Separator coating process
EP4012345A2
Li-ion cell architecture
US9876543B1
Formation protocol v2.1
Risk Report
6 analyzed
~3 min
Describe
Plain English. No legal training required.
Search
ML query expansion + semantic vector search.
Analyze
Element-by-element claim mapping.
Ship
Risk report, design-arounds, strategic directions.
Why Start-IP
You don't need a tool. You need an answer.
Search platforms give you data. Law firms give you a bill. We give you a decision.
| Law Firm | Search Platforms | Start-IP | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time to result | 6 – 12 weeks | Days of work | Minutes |
| IP expertise required | High | High | None |
| Output | Legal report | List of patents | Actionable report |
| Risk assessment | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Design-around options | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Self-serve, instant access | ✗ | ~ | ✓ |
Our Belief
Shipping without IP clarity is like driving a highway⚡ Read the full Manifesto
without a speedometer —
you might be fine. Or you might not.
Blog
IP Insights for Builders
Practical patent intelligence for founders and engineers who ship.
What is Freedom to Operate — and why should you care before Series A?
Coming soon
Design-around strategies: how to build around a blocking patent
Coming soon
Patent landscape in solid-state batteries: what founders need to know
Coming soon
Articles launching soon. Get notified →
FAQ
Questions we get asked a lot
What is a Freedom to Operate (FTO) analysis?
Does Start-IP replace a patent attorney?
How accurate is the AI analysis?
What patent databases do you cover?
How long does a full FTO analysis take?
Who is Start-IP built for?
Still have questions? Drop us a line →
Early Access
Ready to ship fearless?
We're onboarding startups one by one. No enterprise contracts. No legal background required.
No legal department required.