Introduction
Intangible assets can be a powerful tool in liability management, financial restructuring and M&A, but they must be properly understood, professionally valued, and often rapidly transacted.
Tech+IP has spent over 12 years working with top global restructuring groups at leading investment banks and law firms to unlock over $9B of value from intangibles that were frequently overlooked prior to our involvement.
Historically, technology companies relied primarily on equity financing , but in the past 5-10 years that has changed dramatically. Many are now accruing more debt and refinancing old debt in the private credit markets, and as those loans mature, a new wave of restructurings is coming, driven AI disruption and geopolitical uncertainty.
For tech and non-tech companies with strong R&D, deep technology, pioneering software, or AI, intellectual property (IP) can often be material to the size of any deal, and Tech+IP can help realize that value.
Private debt financing has surged across the tech sector, growing from under $12B in 2015 to over $50B in 2024, with tech's share of the broader private debt market rising from roughly 4% to 10%. This expansion spans venture debt, large-scale private loans and direct lending facilities supporting acquisitions, infrastructure, and pre-IPO financing. Notably, Zendesk’s $5B take-private in 2022 and CoreWeave’s record $7.5B debt package in 2024 illustrate the scale: private credit now underwrites multibillion-dollar tech deals once dominated by banks.
By 2024, private credit providers backed 77% of global leveraged buyout (LBO) loan volume and 17% of U.S. middle-market leveraged loans, up from just 7% in 2018. This shift has produced increasingly complex capital structures—more covenant-heavy, more bespoke, and regularly tapping non-traditional asset classes, including IP, as collateral.
by private credit · 2024
Patents, brands, copyrights, data, and trade secrets are moving from the periphery to the center of the restructuring equation. Whether underpinning $1B+ refinancings or bridging to liquidity events, IP now represents a critical form of collateral and recovery value. Yet it remains underutilized or misclassified in financial models.
Unlike physical assets, patents offer scalable enforcement value, cross-licensing leverage, and liquidation potential across sectors such as AI, semiconductors, wireless communications, and enterprise software. In the context of rising tech debt and approaching refinancing deadlines, properly valuing and monetizing patent portfolios is no longer optional—it is a necessary lever for restructuring professionals and creditors alike.
The Cost of Getting IP Wrong is Rising Fast
With interest rates continuing to hover at near two-decade highs and economic uncertainty driven by AI and geopolitics, the corporate balance sheets are under sustained pressure. Refinancing costs have risen sharply, and while private credit is abundant, additional collateral and deeper diligence are now often required. According to Reuters, U.S. corporate bankruptcies jumped 33.5% in 2024, reaching an eight-year high, a trend that has continued into 2025, with Chapter 11 activity surging across consumer, healthcare, and tech sectors, and similar patterns emerging in Europe and Asia.
This may represent only the early stages. Many credit analysts project a rolling wave of restructurings across mid-cap portfolios before the end of 2025, as refinancing cliffs hit maturities and interest coverage ratios deteriorate.
IP as Financial Lever
IP need not be a corporate cost center. It can be:
Accessing these benefits requires a specialized combination of capabilities rarely found within a single advisory relationship. While law firms have IP departments, that legal skill set is best utilized when combined with financial advisory expertise, specifically, the ability to translate IP law into tangible market value.
What a Proper IP Valuation Does
IP valuation is not a simple spreadsheet exercise. It is a strategic, technical, and legal diagnostic tool all in one. Done properly, IP valuation:
Shows where the company has contributed and explores potential applications beyond the company’s current focus. This includes:
- Assessing industry milestones to determine whether the company led, followed, or lagged in critical innovations— regardless of IP protection.
- Evaluating current adoption across adjacent industries and assessing near-term applicability.
- Core 5G telecommunications technologies, for instance, often apply to Wi-Fi; medical device innovations often transfer to automotive and other industries; video technology has evolved from living rooms to phones and now to automobiles.
Maps potential applications beyond the company’s current focus and distinguishes between Core and Non-Core IP assets where the company has contributed. This includes:
- Core IP assets are essential to ongoing business operations: a distinction crucial in Chapter 11 restructurings, where DIP and follow-on lenders need to confirm that the reorganized entity maintains key protections.
- Non-Core IP assets may be less strategically central or no longer serve as competitive differentiators but often retain significant independent market value, particularly in R&D-driven and technology firms.
- Importantly, Core IP is not every patent related to the company’s main technologies—it is the minimal set necessary to preserve freedom to operate against key competitors.
Identifies high-value patents, both current and those expected to appreciate in the near future.
Maps patents to potential infringers or future users, supporting the financial assumptions underlying the valuation.
Relies on actual market data, including prior transactions, royalty rates, litigation outcomes, and informal market intelligence—including non-public deals.
Models income scenarios across licensing, sale, and litigation.
Applies multiple valuation methodologies as reasonableness checks, enhancing credibility and lender confidence.
Presents findings in familiar financial terms, directly supporting DIP financing, stalking horse bids, and other strategic alternatives.
Why Tech+IP Advisory
Tech+IP is the world's leading boutique investment bank at the intersection of intellectual property and artificial intelligence. Spun out of Houlihan Lokey (NYSE: HLI), we bring together deep tech engineering, foundational AI expertise, IP law acumen, and Wall Street finance experience. Over the past decade, Tech+IP has advised on transactions exceeding $9 billion in aggregate value—across M&A, financings, restructurings, and strategic advisory mandates—helping clients get full value across the global technology landscape.
Tech+IP has worked on high-profile bankruptcies involving companies, creditors, and their legal and restructuring counsel such as Avaya, Violin Memory, Lumileds, and Helicos, working alongside Houlihan Lokey (both during and beyond our engagement), Lazard, PJT Partners, PWP, and Evercore, as well as top law firms including Kirkland, Weil Gotshal, Latham & Watkins, Paul Weiss, and Proskauer.
IP Track Records Matter
Tech+IP’s track record demonstrates how overlooked intellectual property can translate into measurable financial outcomes across financings, restructurings, and transactions.
You Cannot Value Assets in a Market Without “Being in the Market”
Highly experienced “business valuation” teams or specialists too often perform IP valuation despite lacking firsthand experience with IP transactions or managing IP licensing programs, and despite having little direct contact with active IP market participants. The result is a theoretical valuation that is disconnected from the current market and offers no tangible pathway to value realization after the exercise.
Tech+IP buys, sells, and finances patent and IP portfolios. We execute structured IP financings and negotiate with operating companies, litigation funders, financial sponsors, and family offices across Wall Street and globally. Drawing on hundreds of engagements over 12 years, across semiconductors, networking, AI, and other deep tech sectors, we bring real-time, market-tested insight, not hypotheticals.
That connectivity translates into credibility and, ultimately, currency.
Conclusion
IP is the Restructuring Lever of the Next Tech Debt Cycle
As the next wave of tech restructurings approaches, the winners—among companies, creditors, and advisors—may be those who treat intellectual property not as a legal footnote but as a strategic asset class. Patents and other forms of IP can unlock liquidity, preserve enterprise value, and shape outcomes across the capital structure.
To do that effectively, financial and legal advisors need IP experts who bring more than valuation credentials: they need execution experience, market connectivity, and strategic foresight.
That is what Tech+IP delivers: turning overlooked intangibles into tangible financial outcomes.