EnforceShield raises EUR €1.7 million in seed round

EnforceShield has raised €1.7 million in seed funding in a round led by Vendep Capital, with participation from FIRSTPICK VC.

The Lithuanian legal technology company will use the funding to expand its intellectual property enforcement platform, add more automated workflows, and support commercial growth in the US, which accounts for up to 80% of its sales pipeline.

EnforceShield was founded in 2024 by Rytis Rudzinskas, a lawyer who had previously handled digital intellectual property enforcement manually for clients. He funded the company's early development alongside partners at CEE Attorneys, where he was a partner.

The company sells software for enterprises dealing with online abuse of their intellectual property, including counterfeit goods, unauthorised sellers, fake listings, cloned storefronts, impersonation adverts, and phishing pages. Its platform serves more than 20 enterprise customers in eCommerce and removes an average of more than 33,500 intellectual property violations a month.

The system is designed to manage enforcement work from detection through legal analysis, validation, takedown execution, monitoring, and escalation. Its model keeps lawyers and analysts in review roles or directs them to more complex cases, rather than assigning them routine operational work.

The funding round comes amid a broader rise in online intellectual property abuse, with artificial intelligence making it easier to create and distribute infringing content and counterfeit offers at scale. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has valued global trade in counterfeit goods at about USD $467 billion, or 2.3% of total global imports.

EnforceShield argues this has widened the gap between the volume of infringements and the capacity of human-led enforcement teams. It also pointed to the European Union's decision to classify intellectual property crime as a law enforcement priority for the 2026 to 2029 cycle.

Attorney roots

EnforceShield's origins are closely tied to legal practice. Rudzinskas built the business around processes he had used in client work, while software developer Aidis Stukas and his team later took over the technical build. Stukas then joined as Chief Technology Officer with an ownership stake.

By the time of the seed round, EnforceShield already had a working product in the market and customers across consumer brands, direct-to-consumer businesses, and multi-brand portfolios. It said same-day onboarding is possible because the system requires limited upfront data and can ingest information directly.

Rytis Rudzinskas outlined his view of the problem facing brands and legal teams.

"When I founded this company, I felt we were already operating on borrowed time. Generative AI had made IP abuse a booming business, but enforcement was still largely a human-scale operation. Enterprises didn't need more lawyers or even a software co-pilot. They needed tech that's able to think like a lawyer and pilot itself through enforcement workflows. We started by reworking the legal operational workflows I've spent years building and operating manually and encoded that expertise into a system that can run autonomously. EnforceShield is now freeing human teams from a glut of repetitive work they'll never manage manually, and developing the most sophisticated software that can perform the operational enforcement function itself and at scale," said Rudzinskas, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of EnforceShield.

Investor view

Vendep Capital said EnforceShield's appeal lies in its attempt to automate the legal and operational work that follows the identification of potential infringements, rather than limiting itself to search and detection.

"AI has made turning service businesses into software into a massive opportunity, and legal services are ripe for this shift. Finding counterfeits was never the hard part for brands. The value lies in everything that happens after discovery, and EnforceShield handles that whole process in one system rather than stopping at detection. Rytis worked on this problem himself for years before building the company, which is precisely the expertise needed to automate it properly. This team has shown it can turn that knowledge into product at genuine speed. We are delighted to be backing them as they extend that automation to every channel where brands are being copied," said Artis Bisers, Investment Manager at Vendep Capital.

The next stage of development will focus on more difficult enforcement pathways, including repeat offenders and escalations beyond standard takedowns. The platform already operates globally, and the company aims to serve intellectual property owners across sectors including eCommerce, technology, sport, media, and publishing.

EnforceShield is headquartered in Lithuania and also has a US subsidiary in Tennessee.