Start-up exit a bittersweet moment for Scale Investors

Australian female-focused angel investor network Scale Investors has completed its first successful start-up exit.

Scale Investors’ Lauren Melton and Susan Oliver.

Australian female-focused angel investor network Scale Investors has completed its first successful start-up exit, with Trademark­Vision successfully acquired by Boston-based analytics outfit Clarivate Analytics.

TrademarkVision was founded in 2013 by CEO Sandra Mau, who will remain with the company, alongside chief operating officer Cameron Mitchell and their team of 30 based across Brisbane, Pittsburgh and San Francisco.

Its technology helps protect brands using image recognition and machine learning, with 40 per cent of the world’s trademarks containing images.

TrademarkVision’s recognition software applies the principles of facial recognition software to search artwork, images and 3D design patents to determine whether a proposed trademark logo is acceptable or if it infringes on an existing trademark.

TrademarkVision chair­woman and Scale angel investor Lauren Melton told The Australian that trademark professionals relied on building complex queries with keywords and image codes to research image-based trademarks on their own.

“When Sandra first pitched, it was clear she understood that what we’re looking for is to choose companies that have got a globally disruptive technology that sits behind it,” Ms Melton said. “A usual trademark search can take up to six months, with trademark attorneys going through paper records and God knows what else. Sandra’s technology can do it in a matter of minutes.”

Ms Melton added that she had mixed feelings about the deal, given that she was sad to be resigning as chair but delighted by the end result.

“I feel like I raised a four-year-old, and then the child’s been adopted out to another family … There’s a sense of loss,” Ms Melton said.

“Sandra developed as a founder into someone who was so capable. She came to us as a technologist but I feel she learned so much from the people around her, growing as a commercial ­operator and a person.”

The company received its first seed investment in a 2014 round co-led by Melbourne-based Scale Investors and Right Click Capital, joined by QUT Creative ­Enterprise Australia, based at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane.

Susan Oliver, who was Scale’s founding chair and is the chair of the Wheeler Centre as well as a number of other organisations, said that Scale was founded ­because of statistics that show women are discriminated against in the venture capital sector, ­either actively or passively.

“I think we’ve made a difference, there are a lot more women-led start-ups now,” Ms Oliver said.

TrademarkVision will now become part of Clarivate Ana­lytics company CompuMark, the trademark clearance and protection partner for what it says are nine out of 10 of the world’s most valuable brands. The acquisition was for an undisclosed sum.

“CompuMark is making significant investments in its product portfolio and the business as a whole by investing in best-of-breed image-recognition technology and expertise in artificial intelligence,” CompuMark president Jeff Roy said.