Houlihan Lokey Advises Cipher

Houlihan Lokey is pleased to announce that Cipher has been acquired by LexisNexis® Intellectual Property Solutions, which is part of RELX, for an undisclosed consideration. The transaction closed on 31 March 2023.

Aistemos Limited is a UK-based company founded in 2013 and trades under the Cipher brand. Cipher is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) analytics platform that uses machine learning to automate the classification of patented technologies into custom or industry-standard taxonomies. This classification supports IP teams in their strategic patent decisions and helps them communicate the risk and associated value of patents. Cipher allows clients to optimise their patent portfolio, gather competitor intelligence, manage their budget, conduct due diligence, and benchmark their portfolio.

After the acquisition, Cipher will become part of LexisNexis® PatentSight®, the LexisNexis® flagship IP analytics solution. With the addition of the Cipher classification capabilities, PatentSight® customers will not only be able to build custom technology taxonomies based on how they view the world, but also make those custom classifiers available across their entire IP department, providing a consistent understanding of the world’s technologies.

LexisNexis® Intellectual Property Solutions brings clarity to innovation for businesses worldwide. It enables innovators to accomplish more by helping them make informed decisions, be more productive, comply with regulations, and ultimately achieve a competitive advantage for their business. Its suite of workflow and analytics solutions (LexisNexis® IP DataDirect, LexisNexis® IPlytics, LexisNexis PatentAdvisor®, LexisNexis PatentOptimizer®, LexisNexis® PatentSight®, and LexisNexis TotalPatent One®) enables companies to be more efficient and effective at bringing meaningful innovations to our world.

RELX is a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers. The group serves customers in more than 180 countries and has offices in about 40 countries. It employs over 30,000 people, of whom almost half are in North America. The shares of RELX PLC, the parent company, are traded on the London, Amsterdam, and New York stock exchanges, using the following ticker symbols: London: REL; Amsterdam: REN; and New York: RELX. The market capitalisation is approximately £46.9 billion (approximately €52.4 billion and $56.3 billion).

Houlihan Lokey served as the exclusive financial advisor to Cipher on its sale to Lexis Nexis® and RELX. This transaction builds on the firm’s market-leading position in the IP software and services sector. Other recent Houlihan Lokey transactions in the space include acting for Thomson Reuters and Wolters Kluwer on the sale of their Spanish and French legal information-based businesses to Karnov Group AB; Corsearch on its acquisition of Incopro; the acquisition of Corsearch by Astorg; Morningside on its sale to Questel; TrademarkNow on its sale to Corsearch; SciBite on its sale to Elsevier; MultiLing on its sale to Questel; Incopro on its equity raise from Highland Europe; Warburg Pincus on the sale of ipan to Castik Capital; PatentSight on its sale to Lexis Nexis®; and Chipworks on its sale to TechInsights.