Key points:
- Daniel Ruskin, a former Coinbase engineer at age 14, has launched Inventex to disrupt patent filings using AI.
- The company raised $2.4 million to accelerate development and currently serves both startups and public companies.
- Inventex combines AI agents with legal oversight to deliver faster and higher-quality patent applications.
Daniel Ruskin, who began his engineering career at Coinbase at just 14 years old, has launched a new startup—Inventex—with the bold aim of transforming how patents are filed. The Salt Lake City-based company, founded in December 2024, leverages AI agents augmented by licensed attorneys to prepare and file patent applications significantly faster than traditional firms.
Ruskin, now 26 and a recent NYU Law graduate, said his frustrations with the opaque and slow patent system inspired Inventex. “We want to get companies to patent-pending status 10x faster,” he told TechCrunch.
The concept quickly attracted investor support. Within a month of launching, Inventex raised $2.4 million in a pre-seed round at a $10 million valuation. Backers include Conviction Capital, Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam, Cambrian Ventures, and Boost, among others.
Inventex’s platform ingests technical materials—such as source code, design documentation, and technical specs—and uses AI to analyze inventiveness, conduct prior art searches, and draft patent applications. Licensed attorneys review the output, and the company files applications on behalf of clients in the U.S. and abroad.
The startup is already gaining traction. It has $250,000 in annual recurring revenue in the pipeline, including two public companies and numerous startups. Ruskin says demand is outpacing capacity. “We have more inbound than we can handle,” he noted.
Inventex differentiates itself from legal tech platforms that sell automation tools to firms locked into the billable hour model. Instead, it offers an end-to-end service that replaces traditional drafting with domain-specific AI agents overseen by legal professionals. “Our competitors sell software. We deliver patents,” Ruskin said.
Beyond patent law, Inventex is already applying its tools to new legal domains—such as automating Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) complaints on behalf of laid-off federal workers. Ruskin believes the model is highly generalizable.
Prior to Inventex, Ruskin helped build Coinbase’s early infrastructure and launched Checkr Pay while at Checkr, helping to grow two fintech unicorns before earning his law degree. Investors and collaborators—like Cambrian Ventures’ Rex Salisbury and former Coinbase colleague Maksim Stepanenko—describe him as an unusually high-velocity builder with deep technical and legal fluency.
Currently, Inventex operates with three full-time engineers and several contract attorneys. Ruskin is exploring licensing Inventex’s technology to law firms in a white-labeled format to help them file patents more efficiently. His long-term vision: “In five years, 90% of drafting will be automated. The value will come from strategy.”
As patent law faces increasing demand for speed and accessibility, Inventex is positioning itself at the forefront of what Ruskin hopes will be a more scalable and democratized innovation system.
