Leveraging Intellectual Properties for Start-up and SME Hypergrowth: Towards Holistic Support Services

The emergence of intellectual property rights (IPR) support services dedicated to valorisation and business hyper-growth represents a relatively recent phenomenon. Focusing on IPR-backed financing, this report provides a guide for business consultants, public authorities, and accelerators on how to design and implement suitable support services for SMEs and start-ups. The guide brings together the perspectives of key stakeholders and provides case study evidence drawn from an analysis of respective services across 11 EU member states, putting forward an evaluation framework that can be used to assess the adequacy of support services for facilitating IPR-backed financing. The framework emphasises the importance of holistic services that help businesses develop an IP strategy aligned to their business model and provide specific support targeted at leveraging IPR for gaining access to finance. The report finds that significant steps have been made in developing such holistic services in recent years but highlights the need to integrate services dedicated to IPR-backed finance more strongly