Stilta raises $10.5M from a16z and YC to help companies rediscover the patents they forgot they had | TechCrunch

"Block then took a role at an autonomous trucking company, where he saw firsthand how manual and slow the patent process was. The idea for his next company came one evening at dinner with a friend and colleague, Tobias Estreen, when Estreen's father, a patent attorney, started recounting what his days looked like: "Reading the same kind of documents, the same way he had for thirty years," Block recalled."

"Block and Estreen saw an opening and teamed up with two others, Petrus Werner and Oscar Adamsson, to launch Stilta, an AI platform designed to automate the research and analytical work behind intellectual property cases - the kind of labor-intensive work that has historically made patent litigation slow and expensive. The startup announced a $10.5 million seed round on Tuesday, led by Andreessen Horowitz."

"Users put a patent number into the software along with any relevant content, and from there, a network of AI agents gets to work, searching for other patents might conflict with the claim, flagging similar property that could apply, and pulling the filing and court history of the patent. "They reason in parallel and converge the way a room full of specialists would, but at a scale no human team can match," Block said, adding that the lawyer or professional using the platform is still in the "driver's seat" by guiding the analysis."

Oskar Block has repeatedly pursued entrepreneurship, starting with machine learning models for sports betting and later moving into consulting on AI integration for large enterprises. He then joined an autonomous trucking company and observed how slow and manual patent processes can be. After hearing a patent attorney describe years of repetitive document review, Block partnered with Tobias Estreen and two others to launch Stilta. Stilta is an AI platform that automates research and analytical tasks in intellectual property cases, aiming to reduce the labor intensity that makes patent litigation slow and expensive. Users provide a patent number and relevant content, and AI agents search for conflicting patents, flag similar property, and retrieve filing and court history. The system reasons in parallel like specialists while the user remains the driver.

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