The team behind Graveyard.vc  ·  Menlo Park, California

Operators, lawyers, and people who have been there.

A small team that has built, financed, and dissolved companies before. Sitting inside a three-firm IP and litigation platform — Trademarkia, PatentVC, LegalForce RAPC — that gives a wind-down practice depth most firms can't field.

$1B+ in IP authored, sold, or enforced by team members
125K+ Trademarkia clients across 80+ countries
50+ attorneys at the LegalForce RAPC operating firm
40+ first-chair federal cases tried by the founder
§ I — Founder
Raj Abhyanker — Founder, Patent Attorney & Federal Litigator Founder · IP & Litigation

Raj Abhyanker

Founder · Patent Attorney & Federal Litigator

Before any of the rest, Raj grew up in a family retail business in Phoenix. He finished college and went on to law school only after that business wound down — the experience that put him on the path to becoming an attorney in the first place, and the personal foundation of why Graveyard.vc exists at all. He has launched dozens of companies since, knows the rush when one takes off and the sadness when one doesn't, and built this practice around the conviction that founders facing a wind-down deserve someone who has lived both sides of it.

Professionally, he founded Graveyard.vc to address the same structural failure he had watched up close for two decades from the practitioner's side: venture-backed companies running out of runway, then losing another third of what was left to a legacy assignee that had no real plan for the patents and trademarks on the table — and no operating discipline to compress the time to close.

He is the inventor of Nextdoor.com, Founding CEO of its predecessor company, which he led from inception through Series B prior to its exit to Google. He is the founder of Trademarkia.com, which he scaled self-funded to $13M ARR, 125,000+ clients across 80+ countries, and 1M+ organic monthly visitors — making it the largest brand-protection registry in the United States and the source of the buyer-graph data that powers Graveyard.vc's IP-monetization workstream.

Raj served five years as outside patent counsel to NVIDIA, authoring 100+ U.S. and international applications across AI, GPU architecture, and gaming. Patents he has written or invented have been licensed or sold for over $1 billion — a record that's relevant to wind-down practice precisely when the IP is the highest-value asset on the balance sheet.

A first-chair federal litigator with 40+ cases, Raj also runs the 50-attorney LegalForce RAPC operating firm, serves as founder of PatentVC, and is licensed by the California State Bar and the USPTO. The infrastructure differential — Trademarkia's brand-protection network, PatentVC's federal-litigation team, LegalForce's attorney bench — is what makes the Graveyard.vc engagement materially different from a standalone wind-down practice.

Inventor · NextdoorFounder · TrademarkiaUSPTO Reg.CA State BarFederal LitigatorNVIDIA Counsel
PersonalGrew up in a family retail business in Phoenix. Has launched dozens of companies; the wind-down of his family's business put him on the path to law school in the first place. BarCalifornia State Bar · USPTO Registered FoundedTrademarkia · PatentVC · LegalForce RAPC NotableInventor of Nextdoor.com · 5-yr NVIDIA outside counsel · 40+ federal cases Contactteam@graveyard.vc
§ II — Counsel
Michael Markos — Counsel, Brand & IP Counsel · Brand & IP

Michael Markos

Counsel · Brand Strategy & IP Enforcement · Professor of Law, ASU

Michael represents a number of the world's leading brand owners and celebrities on all aspects of brand development, engagement, and protection — from inception to global growth. Clients include A$AP Rocky and his global streetwear brand VLONE, where Michael advises on trademark strategy, brand enforcement, and the full arc of building IP-backed cultural brands at scale.

He joined LegalForce RAPC Worldwide after legal internships at the United States Attorney's Office, the Arizona Attorney General's Office, and Starwood Hotels & Resorts, plus judicial work for Senior Judge Susan R. Bolton of the U.S. District Court for Arizona — a path through federal practice that's unusually direct for a brand-side attorney.

Outside of LegalForce RAPC, Michael is a Professor of Law at Arizona State University. For Graveyard.vc, that pedigree matters most where wind-downs intersect with brand value — celebrity-backed labels, cultural IP, and consumer brands where the trademark portfolio is the asset that needs to clear cleanly to a buyer. Where most ABC practitioners treat trademarks as paperwork to assign, Michael runs trademark strategy and enforcement as a value-creation discipline.

Brand StrategyVLONE / A$AP RockyTrademark EnforcementASU Law FacultyFederal Judicial
FacultyProfessor of Law, Arizona State University PriorJudicial work for Hon. Susan R. Bolton, U.S. District Court for Arizona · U.S. Attorney's Office · Arizona AG · Starwood Hotels & Resorts Notable clientsA$AP Rocky · VLONE · brand owners and celebrities (confidential) Contactteam@graveyard.vc
§ III — Operating Platform

A three-firm platform.
Not a standalone shop.

Graveyard.vc isn't a wind-down boutique. It's the wind-down practice of LegalForce RAPC Worldwide P.C., the operating law firm that has built and operated Trademarkia for 15 years and stood up PatentVC as its federal-litigation arm. Every engagement runs on top of all three.

Brand & Trademark

Trademarkia.

The largest brand-protection registry in the United States. 125,000+ clients in 80+ countries over 15 years. The infrastructure that powers Graveyard.vc's Buyer Graph and the trademark-recordal pipeline for IP carve-outs.

trademarkia.com →
Patent Litigation & Investment

PatentVC

Federal-court patent litigation and IP co-investment for venture-backed startups. Available in-house for enforcement-led IP monetization engagements where a closing only happens because litigation is credibly on the table.

patentvc.com →
Operating Law Firm

LegalForce RAPC

The operating law firm. 50+ attorneys across IP prosecution, transactional work, federal litigation, and corporate counsel. The bench Graveyard.vc draws on for any engagement that needs more than the four-person core team.

legalforce.com →

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