COMPANY HISTORY
Founding
Like so many companies, Licens.io was born from a frustrating experience and a few simple questions:
- Why is technology diligence still so manual?
- Why is technology risk still assessed anecdotally?
- Why is technology value measured using antiquated models?
Our CEO and CTO had previously participated in dozens of M&A or financing events. But when they exited their prior commercial open source software company in 2018, the market opportunity became painfully apparent. Even the best law firms and deal advisors in the world were still living in a data-free world.
Research
This salient experience led to a research effort focused especially on the Python and R ecosystems – two of the oldest and largest repositories of open source software and data that exist. These early research efforts were documented in two research publications:
- An Empirical Analysis of the Python Package Index (PyPI), Ethan Bommarito, Michael Bommarito.
- An Empirical Analysis of the R Package Ecosystem, Ethan Bommarito, Michael J Bommarito.
During our first three years, we focused solely on developing technology and data assets to validate our risk and valuation models and automate as much of our diligence process as possible.
Our team of six was busy. Over those three years in stealth, we’ve:
- Written tens of thousands of lines of code
- Annotated tens of thousands of source files or database schemas
- Developed dozens of machine learning models related to source code and database schemas
- Designed template compliance material and innovative policies and procedures
Commercialization
After years of patient research and development, we’re now ready to share the fruits of our labors. Starting in late 2021, we began working with our first customers in the FinTech and Marketing industries. With just our first two clients, we had already saved them $300K in direct costs and over $2M in enterprise value.
As a self-financed and sustainable business, we’re positioned to grow in 2022 – no matter which direction the funding and M&A market goes.
You can learn more about our team here.