78. SnapDragon Monitoring Ltd

Founder: Rachel Jones
Founded: November 2014 (launched March 2015)
Website: www.snapdragon-ip.com

Serial entrepreneur Rachel Jones came to realise the power of intellectual property (IP) after her last business, a retailer of children’s car seat Totseat was put at risk from “potentially crippling” counterfeiting.

Having had to fight fiercely to protect her own IP, Jones was inspired to create SnapDragon Monitoring; a service which would help small-and-medium businesses fight fakes online and protect their IP.

The service, which employs a team of experienced multi-lingual data analysts, uses IP rights to defend brands on e-commerce platforms across the world. Using proprietary software, the business can monitor, report and remove infringing goods from the world’s 100 most visited online marketplaces, auction sites, and social media channels.

Last year, SnapDragon prevented the sale of $1obn worth of counterfeit products and Jones is so confident in SnapDragon’s ability to fight counterfeiting that the business aims to make itself redundant for each customer within 18 months of service introduction.

Available on a subscription-basis, the service is now trusted by fast-growing retail brands such as Morphsuits, Harris Tweed and Endura to fight its IP battles on the web. Its client portfolio will be further bolstered shortly with the addition of “a number of exciting and well-known clients to its books over the coming months.”

Enabling small businesses to exert their control over IP, much like that of multi-nationals but at a reasonable price, Jones asserts that SnapDragon is a powerful force for good:

“SnapDragon has the potential to positively affect global trade by seriously denting the number of counterfeit goods for sale, removing dangerous products from the market and helping small firms to reap the hard-earned benefits of their innovations.”

With counterfeit crime a global challenge, we’ll be keeping a close eye on SnapDragon as its ramps up its efforts to help small businesses fight back.