Two founders in their twenties launch Arcangel to simplify the patent process for early-stage founders
The co-founders Srikar Srinivasan and Taihei Eastwood are building at the Brickyard in Chattanooga.
At 14 years old, Srikar Srinivasan started his first company, Comzy’s, an automatic pet paw washer and dryer. He became one of the youngest people in New Jersey to receive a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. And by 16, he had sold a portion of the rights to a private-equity-backed pet company.
“It took me a long time to build it. It was a very expensive patent, and so when the opportunity came up to sell, it was a no-brainer,” he said.
That experience helped shape what Srinivasan is building today. Now 21 years old, he’s developing an AI-powered intellectual property filing platform designed to help early-stage founders protect their own ideas without the traditionally high attorney costs.
The company, ArcAngel, has attracted early investment from Brickyard, one of the region’s early-stage venture capital firms. The pre-seed investment brought Srinivasan, his co-founder Taihei Eastwood, and the company to Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Leading up to the launch of ArcAngel
Srinivasan met Eastwood during his sophomore year at Babson College. With plenty of business ideas, Srinivasan said he needed a partner who understood the technical side of building software. The two connected over their complementary skills.
Eastwood’s background is more technical than entrepreneurial. He has participated in more than 20 hackathons, winning eight of them through the years.
“I’ve always really loved building projects from zero to one,” Eastwood said.
The idea for ArcAngel began when the two became aware of the thousands of dollars in legal fees it takes to navigate the patent and trademark process. Srinivasan, having been down that road before, recognized an opportunity to bring a new alternative to market.
“Surely we can do this much cheaper,” he said.
The two built an initial product and shared the code with other Gen Z founder friends to gather feedback. To Srinivasan and Eastwood’s surprise, the response was immediate.
“Two weeks later we had made $30,000 in revenue in our Stripe account,” Srinivasan said. “Shortly after that, we had an investment meeting with Cam Doody and Matt Patterson at Brickyard.”
With early traction, the co-founders took a “leave of absence from college to focus on building the business full time.”
Making intellectual property protection more accessible
ArcAngel is addressing several challenges the founders see in the intellectual property process, starting with cost.
Reducing legal fees
Patent applications can be expensive, particularly when attorney fees are factored in. Srinivasan found that legal experts remain critical for quality control and filing, but much of the drafting and due diligence work could be streamlined.
“ArcAngel automates the drafting and due diligence process to allow founders to hand over a package that’s 90 percent ready to their attorney, cutting legal fees down significantly,” he said.
Since launching this portion of the platform, Eastwood and Srinivasan said they’ve received interest from law firms looking to incorporate ArcAngel into their office workflows. However, the founders remain committed to keeping the product founder-focused.
“We’re not building tools to make attorneys’ lives easier or help them increase their profit margins. We’re here to make the founders’ lives easier,” Srinivasan said.
According to pricing on the Arcangel website, a starter patent application costs $150 to self-file or $400 to be attorney-reviewed, and a full patent application costs $1,000 or $5,000, plus government fees. A trademark is $99 to be self-filed or $450 with attorney review.
Once the drafting process is complete, Srinivasan said ArcAngel recommends fractional attorneys by domain expertise and pays them per project. The differentiator is that ArcAngel itself is not a law firm, and all attorney services are provided by independent USPTO-licensed attorneys.
Making product drawings without a designer
Another expense founders can encounter is developing the technical drawings required for patent applications. Arcangel has incorporated an AI-powered image generation tool that allows users to input drawings of their ideas and generate more professional schematic illustrations for their applications.
The founders acknowledge that this feature isn’t suited for every type of invention. Deep technology companies, for example, may have more advanced structures and prototypes than the platform’s current drawing capabilities can accommodate. Instead, they see the drawing tool as particularly useful for consumer packaged goods and other product-based inventions.
Piloting a marketplace of ideas
“We recognize that not everyone wants to pursue their inventions full-time. They think they are great ideas, but aren’t ready to step away from their full-time employment to commercialize it,” Srinivasan said.
The founders view the next step for Arcangel as expanding beyond IP protection into licensing.
According to the team, many Arcangel users want to protect their ideas but don’t necessarily have the capital, resources or desire to commercialize them. They see an opportunity to connect those individuals with entrepreneurs who are interested in developing new businesses.
“We’ve been getting offers regularly for thousands of dollars from people who are interested in licensing the ideas of Arcangel users,” Srinivasan said. “I think a large portion of our 2027 revenue is going to be individual users using Arcangel to come up with an idea and protect it, then monetize it through the IP exchange.”
The IP exchange feature is “coming soon,” according to the founders and website.
Srinivasan said Arcangel has orchestrated about 160 IP filings to date.
What’s next for Arcangel?
The co-founders are preparing to bring an iOS app to market, giving users a pocket version of the platform that incorporates all three components: IP protection, schematic drawings and the IP exchange.
Srinivasan said that while the pace of growth has brought its share of stress, the company’s early success has also been a dream come true.
“If you had told me a year ago that we were making money, scaling this fast, and traveling all over the place, I would not have believed it,” he said. “While it may be stressful right now, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
Eastwood agreed.
“It’s delusional to be building a company at our age,” he said. “But entrepreneurship is about believing that you can change the world. And we believe that.”
Explore the Arcangel platform.
Connect with Srikar Srinivasan.
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