When discussing intellectual property (IP) with founders, I get two very different questions from founders, and both questions have the same answer. The first question is, “This IP is my baby, can I keep it instead of giving it to the company?” The second is, “Can’t we worry about IP later?”
The answer to both questions is always “no” if you aspire to obtain venture capital investment to grow your company. Venture funds will take a hard pass on any startup that does not own or has not taken steps to protect its IP.
