Startup profile · funding coverage
Fearn funding, valuation and investors
AI-assisted patent prosecution firm and management software with licensed human expertise; SR005 alumni, $5.5M seed.
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Funding, valuation & investors
Answer-first snapshotLatest funding
Seed
$5.5M · June 2026
Latest known valuation
Not publicly disclosed
Total disclosed equity funding
$5.5M
Excludes debt, grants, acquisitions, secondaries, and IPO proceeds.
Current status
private
seed · San Francisco, California, United States
Investors in latest funding
Lead: Kindred Ventures
Other: a16z Speedrun
Overview
Fearn is a technology-enabled patent services business for startups. Its founders, former Morrison Foerster patent attorney Han Kim and Caltech-trained engineer Angela Gao, combine specialist prosecution services with AI-supported invention capture, drafting, portfolio management and competitor monitoring.
Fearn participated in Speedrun SR005 and announced a $5.5M seed round in June 2026 led by Kindred Ventures, with support from Designer Fund, Essence and a16z Speedrun, according to Business Insider. The company markets fixed-price legal filings and human expert review, making it distinct from do-it-yourself text generation.
Prospective customers should verify which jurisdictions and application types are covered, who acts as counsel, confidentiality controls, ownership of inventions and total fees through prosecution and maintenance. Fearn describes SOC 2 Type 2 examination and running models on its own compute; those statements should be verified in vendor due diligence.
Why Fearn is interesting
Patent work has a high-information, highly structured workflow and costly expert labor. Fearn's real proposition is combining experienced patent prosecutors with automation and fixed prices, not filing patents without legal review.
Product & use cases
Unified portal for inventions, patent applications, filing status, expert legal collaboration and AI-assisted preparation.
- Engineering founders preparing initial provisional and utility filings
- Seed startups tracking inventions, review decisions and patent milestones
- Research teams needing counsel-led IP protection with pricing visibility
Funding history (newest first)
Seed
2026-06 $5.5M- Kindred Ventures (lead)
- a16z Speedrun (participant)
Competitive landscape
Edge: Human patent expertise blended with software and defined pricing; evaluate legal quality and future prosecution costs.
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Traditional patent law firms incumbent
Counsel-led patent drafting and prosecution with traditional billing
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Patlytics adjacent
AI-assisted patent intelligence and workflows
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DeepIP adjacent
Patent drafting and practitioner assistance
Notable stories
- Official SR005 cohort: https://speedrun.a16z.com/companies/fearn
- Funding and product background: https://www.businessinsider.com/a16z-backed-fearn-raises-5-million-legal-ai-patent-drafting-2026-6
- Patent service and team model: https://fearn.ai/
Market / IPO context
Editorial / static context — not a live quote.
FAQs about Fearn
Practical answers founders, operators, and investors typically search for.
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Editorial note: AI tools assisted with research, structure, or drafting. Venture Capital Tracker retains human editorial responsibility for factual accuracy, relevance, and source quality before publication.