DORMANT CAPITAL
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Dormant assets · Institutional buyers

Find the dormant assets worth pursuing. Before someone else does.

Around 80,000 US patents lapse into the public domain each year. Thousands more sit underexploited on their owners' shelves. Most are dead weight. A few are foundational technologies that built billion-dollar industries. We help institutional buyers spot which ones are worth pursuing — to license, acquire, or build on. We start with patents. The same engine extends to industrial IP, concessions and infrastructure.

Talk to us How it works
3.4MLapsed US patents in public domain
~80KNew lapses every year
8 sectorsLive clean-energy coverage
How the scoring works

We ask three questions. In order.

Before we look at value, we look at how dormant the patent actually is. If it's famous or already being licensed, we stop there. Most patents fail this first test. That's the point.

40% Layer 1 The first question

Dormancy

"Is this actually forgotten?"

PASS / FAIL · floor 40/100

We check whether anything is being built on it today, who owns it, whether it's being licensed, how known it is, and where capital has gone recently. Below 40 out of 100, we drop it and don't even compute the rest.

35% Layer 2 Only if it passed

Opportunity

"Is it worth something?"

Market demand, monetization path, margin, strategic importance, how relevant it is to live needs. Five sub-scores, each with sources. We show our reasoning.

25% Layer 3 Only if it passed

Execution

"Can we actually unlock it?"

Legal status, who owns the rights chain, how mature the tech is, how much capital it would take, whether buyers exist today. We don't surface assets that can't be moved.

The rule
Famous patents fail. If a technology is already in production worldwide, the score caps at the dormancy floor and we don't recommend it. No matter how valuable. That's what makes the rest of the engine actually useful.
A worked example

Why the gate matters

Same patent. Two ways of scoring it. Opposite calls. This one example is why we built the gate.

US 4,786,567 · All-Vanadium Redox Battery · Skyllas-Kazacos, UNSW · 1986

The vanadium flow battery patent

Filed in 1986. Public domain since 2006. Every vanadium flow battery running today is built on it.
If you score by value alone
77
BUILD — STRONG CANDIDATE
Famous, valuable, expired. Scores high on market demand and strategic importance. Lands on your IC desk. Wrong call.
→
With the dormancy gate
11
PASS — GATE FAILED
In active commercial production worldwide. Every clean-energy fund knows about it. We drop it before the rest of the engine runs. Right call.
Takeaway.  A screening system that hands you the vanadium flow battery as a discovery is not giving you alpha. It's giving you something every fund already knows about. The gate is what makes the rest of the engine credible.
How we work

Three ways to engage

Pricing varies by mandate. We agree it on a call, not on a website.

Pilot
Pilot

For first-time clients. Prove it works against your thesis before you commit to anything bigger.

  • ✓
    One sector. About a dozen opportunities a month.
  • ✓
    Buyers matched against your stated thesis.
  • ✓
    Full reasoning behind every score, with sources.
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Professional
Professional

For active buyers and family offices with a clear sector mandate.

  • ✓
    Three sectors. Around thirty opportunities a month.
  • ✓
    Your thesis goes deeper. Geography, deal size, hold period.
  • ✓
    A named analyst on your account. Monthly review call.
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Enterprise
Enterprise

For sovereigns, large PE platforms, and strategic acquirers who want full coverage.

  • ✓
    Every sector. No cap on screens. A small team on your account.
  • ✓
    Runs on your domain if you want. SSO and API access included.
  • ✓
    We can route deals directly and take an advisory mandate. Success fees if that's cleaner.
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The 90-day exit window Pilots come with a 90-day no-strings exit. If the engagement isn't delivering against your thesis, you walk and pay no further fee. No clawback, no negotiation.
For investors

Why this gets harder to copy every quarter

Anyone can hook an LLM up to a patent database. That part is easy. The hard part is everything that gets logged after.

  • The outcome dataWe log every score, every override, every deal that closed, every deal that didn't, and why. After a year of pilots our weights are tuned on data nobody else has.
  • What buyers actually doWe learn what each buyer actually moves on. Not what they said at the kickoff call.
  • Our scoring is privateWeights, thresholds and prompts are trade secrets. They don't ship with the product.
  • Cold start gets worseEvery new client adds to the buyer–opportunity graph. The longer we run, the harder a new entrant has it.
FAQ

Questions we get on the first call

How is this different from a patent broker?
Brokers have inventory to clear. We don't. We get paid for telling you which patents are worth pursuing, and most of what comes through our engine we tell you to skip. When you find something worth acting on, we connect you to the right path: a license or acquisition if the patent is still active and has a rights holder; a commercialization partner or operator if it's already in the public domain and free to build on.
What sectors do you cover today?
Clean energy is live: solar, wind, hydrogen, batteries, grid storage, carbon capture, energy efficiency and water. Pharma / biotech and industrial materials are next quarter. Enterprise clients can ask us to port to any other sector.
How does the scoring actually work?
Three layers, each scored 0 to 100. Layer 1 is dormancy. If it scores below 40 we drop the asset. If it passes, we compute Layer 2 (opportunity) and Layer 3 (execution) and blend them 40 / 35 / 25 into a composite. Three buckets: Route (above 72), Watch (52–71), Pass (below 52). Every score has the reasoning and sources attached. Your IC can audit any of it.
Who's behind Dormant Capital?
Kevin Thaudière runs the institutional side. Deal sourcing, family offices, sovereign desks. Nadia Targui runs the product. Scoring methodology, infrastructure. You get both of us, every engagement.
What if I'm an investor, not a buyer?
We're raising now to fund the production build and the first institutional pilots. If you back infrastructure businesses with a real data moat, use the investor link below. Partner deck and pre-seed terms on request, under NDA.

Let's talk.

Talk to us Investor inquiry
management@dormantcapital.io
DORMANT CAPITAL
Dormant IP, scored and routed to institutional buyers.
© Dormant Capital Inc. All rights reserved. Dormant Capital and Dormant Score™ are trademarks of Dormant Capital Inc. This page is for institutional and accredited audiences. Nothing herein constitutes investment advice, an offer or solicitation. By submitting an inquiry, you agree to be contacted under standard NDA.

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