By Gary Symons
TLL Editor in Chief
The online licensing marketplace BIP could well be showing us the future of licensing, with more than 50 licensing deals logged to date.
BIP is an online platform that helps licensors and licensees find each other, acting essentially as a matchmaker for the industry. The BIP licensing hub also features several tools that help in the deal making process, including real-time tracking of deal memos, a virtual chat room, and post-deal management services.
But what’s really impressive about BIP is the progress the company has made in a very short time.
The company received a financing deal in December of last year, launched its beta platform on March 1 with a couple of dozen clients onboard, launched the full service in June prior to Licensing Expo, and has now helped usher through more than 50 licensing deals.
That’s a pretty hot track record, and one that has CEO and co-founder Ari Zebersky pinching himself to make sure it’s not some sort of fever dream.
BIP’s global IP licensing marketplace went live in June, and is already helping close dozens of deals. (PRNewsfoto/BIP)
“I remember in March when we were seeing that first-ever deal go through it was literally quite a jaw-dropping experience,” Zebersky said. “But from there we’ve also had the launch of the full platform, and things have really accelerated.
“I mean, when you think that in March we had the beta version, now we have what we call Version 1 up and running, and since then we’ve been able to close about 50 deals on the platform … that’s just mind blowing when you think about it.”
However, that all happened primarily due to word of mouth and sales calls to various prospects. The fast-growing toy company Jazwares was an early adopter, as have some brand management agencies like the sports marketing agency The Cut and Firefly Brand Management, but since Licensing Expo, the deal flow has taken off.
“The experience at Licensing Expo was 100 per cent that hockey stick moment every entrepreneur hopes for,” said Zebersky, still sounding a little shocked at the pace of success. “It was great when we had all of that press back in March when we launched the beta, but back then people saw the platform and they were more tentative because they didn’t really know what it was going to be about.
“But then with the licensing show we had the relaunched Version 1 and we had this new, beautiful platform that came out, all of a sudden everyone was really interested and we’re all pretty much swamped with the demand.
“Obviously,” Zebersky adds, “that’s a good problem to have.”
Speaking of problems, Zebersky says he believes BIP is enjoying this early success because it deals with an issue faced by all companies in the licensing industry, which is simply the difficulty in finding new licensing partners.
“The number one problem that we’re solving is the discoverability problem within the entire licensing industry, right?” Zebersky explains. “Most people have a Rolodex that they’ve built for the past 30, 40, 50 years, and while that Rolodex is incredibly valuable, there’s always that different aspect of licensing that most people don’t really think of.
“So, think of the obscure product categories that may not come top of mind—examples like virtual restaurants, or mechanical keyboards or Roblox worlds, all of these different kinds of product categories that people don’t typically think of, are leading to lost opportunities, and of course, leading to lost dollars. So that’s the number one problem we solve, because we’re providing that discoverability aspect within the licensing industry.”
Licensing Tech: BIP Launches an Online Licensing Marketplace
Strangely enough, given how well the platform is doing, the BIP team didn’t initially start out building a solution for the licensing industry. That came about after his team began showing their original idea to potential clients.
“From the start, it was a very, very different kind of idea and kind of business and slowly evolved into what it is today,” Zebersky explains. “The original business was actually an NFT marketplace that minted patents, trademarks and copyrights as NFTs, and it was intended to be a new tool for IP protection.
But, when actually started to build this technology we went out into the world, and specifically we went to a licensing show,” he adds. “When we started to show this technology, just the front end aspect and the design aspects, everyone was like, ‘why are you doing this for the buy and sell side?’ You should be doing this for the license side. And so from there, we thought, okay, that makes sense. Then we were able to onboard about eight to 10 clients just from the idea of setting up a licensing marketplace, and that’s why we decided to pivot.”
Input from licensing professionals not only caused BIP to pivot its primary focus toward licensing, but also provided important insights into the features the platform offers. One good example is the dealmaking software, which BIP calls a ‘Deal Memo Editor’.
“What we provide is a real time and editable Deal Memo editor within our software, and we provide a chat room, of course, that’s completely integrated with your email, so all the notifications that you receive go right to your email keeping you up to date at every point through the process,” Zebersky says. “The Deal Memo editor allows you to, in real time, negotiate with your counter party on whatever was proposed. In that sense we haven’t so much created a new way to negotiate, but we have created what I think is a greatly enhanced and easier way to negotiate.”
BIP considers that critical, because licensing professionals have told the team that deals often fail when they get bogged down in the negotiation process and in drafting the agreements. The Deal Memo system is designed to keep the parties on track, keep the deal moving forwards, and to provide full transparency for both sides.
“There’s a lot of detail in these types of deals, and it’s really easy to go off track,” Zebersky says. “We felt it was really important to create transparency and make it much easier to track all the changes as they happen, so nothing gets lost on the way.”
He also credits the software with creating a lot of his company’s early success, because licensing deals within the platform are being closed more quickly.
“What we’ve seen is that most licensing deals that are done through BIP had been significantly faster than the typical licensing deal. Some of these deals closed within two months, which I believe is significantly faster than what you would typically see in a licensing negotiation.”
Still, of all the features offered by the BIP platform, the most important is still likely the matchmaking function.
As one example, Zebersky says BIP is working with the full-service sports marketing agency The Cut, which represents more than 120 top athletes.
But even though pro athletes like Randy Arozarena are well known, not everyone knows they’re involved in licensing.
“A lot of athletes have struggled to find licensing deals over the years, so we are working with The Cut and providing these athletes the opportunity to find licensing deals they might never have dreamed up, especially I unusual product categories or new territories, and also that may be the most favorable for them.
“When you think about it, if you are someone in licensing, how exactly do you find out which athletes might be interested in working with you? It’s not that easy, so putting everyone onto one platform really does make a huge difference. It’s all about discoverability and communication, and that’s what we provide.”