DLA Piper advises Andreessen Horowitz on USD10.5 million investment in AI patent litigation business Stilta

Global law firm DLA Piper has advised leading venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) on its lead investment in Stilta’s USD10.5 million seed funding round, alongside participation from Y Combinator and a group of founders and operators from leading AI companies including Sana, Legora, OpenAI, Lovable and Listen Labs. a16z is a venture capital firm that backs entrepreneurs building the future through technology and has over USD90 billion under management across multiple funds.

Stilta will deploy the funding to increase headcount across its engineering, go-to-market and patent specialist teams in Stockholm and New York.

Stilta develops agentic AI software to enforce, defend and commercialise patents. Its products reason across 180 million patents, 250 million scientific publications and over a trillion archived web pages to surface evidence that legacy tools and manual review consistently miss.

A cross-border team from DLA Piper’s Sweden and US offices worked on the transaction, led by Corporate partners Gabriel Liska, Josh Seidenfeld and John Hutar. They were supported by associates Klara Angberg, Karolin Bergström, Thomas Heiser, and Binjal Chaudhari.

Gabriel Liska, partner, commented: “This investment highlights the increasing convergence of artificial intelligence, legal technology and intellectual property, and reflects growing confidence in platforms that can unlock value from patent portfolios at scale.The ability to analyse large volumes of patent data quickly and accurately has the potential to transform how businesses approach portfolio management, licensing opportunities and patent disputes. The level of investor interest in this space reflects a broader belief that AI-driven patent intelligence will become an important part of the innovation economy.”