Your intellectual property may be your most valuable asset, and it can do more than sit on the balance sheet. IP-backed lending pledges patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets as collateral. Sale-leasebacks generate immediate liquidity while you keep operating. Royalty financing converts future income into cash today. We help companies and lenders structure these transactions to unlock capital while managing the risks IP assets carry, and our technical background helps when the collateral's value turns on how strong the underlying patents or software really are.
Valuing the Assets
Financing starts with what the IP is worth, and IP doesn't appraise like a building. We work with valuation professionals across cost-based, market-based, and income-based approaches, weighing legal strength and validity, remaining useful life, market position, revenue history, and where the technology sits in its lifecycle. A credible valuation grounds the whole transaction, so we help build numbers that lenders and investors will actually lend against rather than discount on sight.
Secured Lending on IP Collateral
Secured lending extends to IP, but the mechanics differ. Perfection isn't uniform: patents and trademarks call for federal filings, copyrights have their own registration regime, and general intangibles follow the UCC. Existing licenses may bar granting a security interest without consent. And enforceability is a real concern, because IP a foreclosing lender can't actually practice may be worth little. We structure security and intercreditor arrangements that give lenders meaningful recourse while leaving the borrower room to keep running the business that services the debt.
Sale-Leasebacks and Royalty Deals
Two structures pull cash out without a conventional loan. In an IP sale-leaseback, you sell the IP to a financing entity and license it back, raising cash while preserving operational access, but the deal has to survive recharacterization risk, where a court recasts the sale as a secured loan, plus changed accounting treatment. Royalty financing sells rights to future royalty streams for upfront capital, non-dilutive and without transferring the IP. Both turn on diligence into the underlying agreements for assignment limits, termination risk, and cash-flow reliability.
Bankruptcy and Cross-Border Risk
A structure that works today has to hold up if a party files. The Bankruptcy Code treats IP licenses specially for both licensors and licensees, security interests face the automatic stay and potential cramdown, and sale-leaseback characterization changes how the deal is treated. Cross-border deals add their own layers: differing perfection rules by country, transfer-pricing constraints, withholding taxes on royalties, and uneven enforcement that affects collateral value. We document collateral schedules, IP-specific reps and covenants, and reporting so the financing survives stress and ongoing administration protects everyone's position.