10 September 2025
IP Clean-up: how to prepare for due diligence and secure your speedboat’s value
Before you seek funding, decide to sell your company, or even when you are approached for collaboration with established companies, you need to make sure that all your information regarding the security of your speedboat is up to date (which should be the case if maintenance has been done right).
When seeking funding or aiming to sell your company, the investor and/or buyer will perform due diligence to analyse the risks, potential opportunities and the expected return on investment. This means a fleet of experts (some financial, some legal, some technological,..) will be appointed to examine all aspects of your company. If you have not prepared for such an investigation, you risk losing interest and ending up with a valuation that is too low.
To avoid surprises and ensure your IP plays its full part in the due diligence process, there are two critical areas to review in detail. These form the foundation of your IP clean-up and must be addressed with care:
If your data room is accessed during due diligence, is it readable and logically structured so that an external party can easily find the documents they are looking for?
Have you structured your IP rights according to their timeline, making it easy to follow the status of the application process and supported by the necessary documents?
Is there a clear list of all contracts, including an overview of the most important elements such as purpose, parties, duration,…?
Have you documented your software programmes in such a way that you can explain the reasoning behind the set-up? Make sure you have at least some flowcharts and/or database trees to visualise the structure.
Can you define what constitutes trade secrets within your business know-how, what advantage this offers for your growth plans, and how you manage to secure those trade secrets?
Not knowing the (intangible) value of your company or failing to maintain the security of your speedboat, is a no-go when it comes to seeking investment.
Too many young companies overlook this topic and face due diligence unprepared or only financially prepared.
Your IP strategy should form the foundation of your company’s value, and at any point, you should treat your intellectual property as an asset for growth.
To make that value visible and tangible to investors, you need to be ready to communicate it clearly and convincingly.
That brings us to the preparation of your IP pitch for investors.
If your IP strategy is clear and all necessary security measures are in place, you should be able to present your IP as an asset for growth to your investor. In a limited amount of time, you need to explain what that asset is and why it matters. Secondly you outline the practical measures such as IP rights and internal procedures that support and maintain that asset.
Too many companies believe IP due diligence is just a matter of counting the number of patents, trademarks,.. That is merely a basic analysis.
Showing how your efforts in securing IP are building an asset for growth – and an intangible asset that grows as business grows - will generate real investor interest. Will it allow you to sell your products at a higher price? Will it offer a competitive advantage?
As budgets are tight for start-ups and scale-ups and every penny counts, this is where the true value of your IP investments becomes visible. If your IP strategy was designed to support the growth of your business and is intertwined with every business decision, the early investments in IP rights will now take its place in the due diligence process.
At Scalendi, we support companies with a speedboat clean-up. We perform a check-up of your data room and review how know-how and trade secret are safeguarded. We help updating your data room and ensure it is lean and clear for external parties to analyse. And we assist in preparing your IP pitch. We support you in presenting your IP as a growth asset and in communicating the true value of your company - because we believe this will lead to a far better negotiation. After all, that’s exactly what you’re aiming for.