Operators.
Founders.
Patent pros.
The people behind your allocation at PatentVC. Former NVIDIA lead patent counsel. Founder of Trademarkia. Founding CEO of the predecessor company that became Nextdoor. Patents we've written or invented have been licensed or sold for nearly $1 billion.
The people who
reserve a seat beside
your lead.
Four operators who've built, funded, protected, and audited real companies - and who now sit on the same side of the cap table as you, alongside your YC, a16z, Sequoia, or Benchmark lead.
FounderRaj Abhyanker
Founder · Patent Attorney / Venture CapitalistRaj is the inventor of Nextdoor.com and was Founding CEO of its predecessor entity, which he took from inception through Seed, Series A, and Series B funding prior to exit to Google. Nextdoor licenses his patents today.
He founded Trademarkia.com and scaled it self-funded to $13M ARR, 125,000+ clients, and 1M+ organic visitors per month - one of the largest IP platforms in the world. He transformed the firm from a labor-driven model to AI agents, reducing headcount from 300 to 86 while improving EBITDA.
Raj served five years as outside patent counsel to NVIDIA, authoring 100+ U.S. and international applications across AI, GPU architecture, and gaming. Patents he has written or invented have been licensed or sold for over $1 billion. He is a first-chair federal litigator with 40+ cases to his name and runs a 50-attorney law firm. California licensed attorney.
Venture StrategistMichael Markos
Venture Strategist · Associate AttorneyMichael represents a number of the world's leading brand owners and celebrities on all aspects of brand development, engagement, and protection - from inception to global growth. Clients include ASAP Rocky and his global streetwear brand VLONE, where Michael advises on trademark strategy, brand enforcement, and the full arc of building IP-backed cultural brands at scale.
He joined PatentVC from LegalForce RAPC Worldwide after legal internships at the United States Attorney's Office, the Arizona Attorney General's Office, and Starwood Hotels & Resorts, plus judicial work for Senior Judge Susan R. Bolton of the U.S. District Court for Arizona. Outside of PatentVC, Michael is a Professor of Law at Arizona State University.
CFO · Investment StrategyJonathan Lilo Bitumba
Chief Financial Officer · Investment StrategistJonathan runs financial strategy, venture structuring, and capital deployment across PatentVC and the broader Trademarkia platform. He came up through management consulting and corporate finance, with roles at Anheuser-Busch InBevand Walmart's African subsidiary, Massmart, building and scaling multi-entity operations across multiple jurisdictions.
He holds an MBA from the Gordon Institute of Business Science at the University of Pretoria, one of Africa's leading and globally ranked business schools, with concentrations in Entrepreneurship & Corporate Finance. He is also a CFA charterholder and is completing an MSc in Finance at the Fordham University Gabelli School of Business in New York.
He is expected to begin doctoral studies in 2027.
Governance · Risk · AuditAmien Gassiep
Governance, Risk, and Audit Strategist“Investors don't lose money because of bad ideas. They lose it because of bad controls.” Amien brings 20 years of governance, risk, and audit leadership across Big 4, JSE-listed entities, and multinationals to the PatentVC portfolio.
He's built 8 audit functions from scratch, recovered $40M, overseen operations across 7 countries, and established enduring control functions at PwC, OneLogix, Redefine Properties, and Trademarkia. He integrates AI into financial oversight - before most organizations know they need it.
Every Bay Area founder we talk to is raising from someone great. The question isn't whetheryou have a lead - it's whether anyone on your cap table can file, prosecute, and enforce the thing that keeps a copycat out of your market.
Raj Abhyanker · Founder, PatentVC · Menlo Park
Backed by
Trademarkia.
PatentVC operates as the venture investment arm of Trademarkia - a global IP platform with 120,000+ clients across 80+ countries. Every PatentVC portfolio company gets direct access to the full platform: real-time monitoring, international filing pipelines, and a legal team with institutional-scale infrastructure.
It's the difference between a VC who believes in your moat and one who can go build it today.
What we believe
shapes how we show up.
We sit beside your lead
Your Tier-1 firm leads. We take a small, strategic slot next to them - $50K–$200K- and make ourselves useful from day one. We don't compete for board seats we haven't earned.
Capital + IP, aligned
We write the check and we write the claims. That alignment - rare on a cap table - is why our portfolio companies file earlier, broader, and cheaper than most Series A companies.
Move at founder speed
We decide in weeks, not quarters. If your lead moves fast, so do we - the application takes <10 min and diligence is scoped so it doesn't block your close.
Only if we can actually help
If there's no defensible tech to protect, we'll tell you plainly and pass. Bad co-investors are worse than none - we'd rather earn a yes than force one.
Have a lead?
Keep a slot for us.
If you're closing a pre-seed, seed, or Series A with a top-tier lead and something genuinely novel in your core technology, carve out a small allocation for PatentVC. We'll bring the IP firepower your cap table is almost certainly missing.