Stilta Secures $10.5M from a16z and YC to Assist Companies in Rediscovering Overlooked Patents

Oskar Block has a relentless passion for entrepreneurship.

At just 18, he founded his first startup, creating machine learning models tailored for sports betting. “I’ve always been intrigued by tackling challenging data issues,” he shared with TechCrunch. This led him into consulting, where he assisted businesses in integrating AI and discovered what it takes for large corporations to adopt new technologies.

Block then joined an autonomous trucking firm, where he witnessed the cumbersome and lengthy nature of the patent process. The inspiration for his next venture struck one evening during dinner with his friend and colleague, Tobias Estreen. Estreen’s father, a patent attorney, began to describe his routine: “Reviewing the same types of documents in the same manner he had for three decades,” Block reflected.

Recognizing an opportunity, Block and Estreen partnered with two others, Petrus Werner and Oscar Adamsson, to establish Stilta, an AI platform aimed at automating the research and analytics involved in intellectual property cases. This technology targets the labor-intensive tasks that have historically hampered patent litigation, making it both slow and costly. Recently, the startup announced a $10.5 million seed funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with additional backing from Y Combinator and participants from firms like OpenAI, Legora, and Lovable.

As CEO of Stilta, Block explained that the platform operates like a legal team. Users input a patent number along with any pertinent documents, and a network of AI agents springs into action, identifying potentially conflicting patents, flagging relevant properties, and retrieving the filing and court histories associated with the patent.

“They process information simultaneously and converge like a room full of experts, but at a scale unmatched by human teams,” Block noted, emphasizing that the lawyer or professional retains control of the analysis, guiding the process rather than relinquishing it. “The output is litigation-ready: a report and claim charts with precise citations for every piece of evidence.”

Other players in this field include Solve Intelligence and DeepIP. Legal tech is gaining traction amid the wider AI surge. Block remarked that certain segments of the legal industry are already undergoing AI-driven transformation, while others may take a significant time to adapt.

He pointed out that the analytical tasks are increasingly being handled by AI, yet humans still determine the outcomes of cases. Additionally, many companies cling to patents they’ve “never enforced, never licensed, and never properly analyzed due to prohibitive costs.”

Stilta’s goal is to lower these cost barriers. By streamlining the patent litigation process, the platform could unlock new opportunities for businesses that have previously neglected their intellectual property and reshaping perspectives on the hidden value resting within their patent portfolios.

“The pressing question isn’t whether the legal system is ready for AI,” Block remarked. “It’s whether companies are equipped for the possibilities that arise when they no longer face an analytical bottleneck.”