RWS Leans Into Growing IP Services Market With Startup Acquisition

Super Agency RWS has acquired Obviously, a platform that helps companies manage and protect their IP and brand assets. RWS will pay GBP 16.5m in cash for the company, which was founded in 2024, with a three-year contingent earnout making the deal worth a potential GBP 40m.

Obviously will sit within RWS’s Protect business unit, the company’s IP services division, and will allow RWS to offer enterprise customers a comprehensive suite of brand and IP services, from global patent applications and renewals to real-time monitoring and enforcement of potential brand and trademark infringement.

RWS also sees Obviously creating synergies between its Protect and Transform localization businesses by creating an offering that helps customers create, localize and protect brands across markets. 

“Obviously’s innovative integrated platform, which safeguards brands through IP & brand management, protection and enforcement intelligence, is a strong fit with both our existing patent-focused IP business and our localization capabilities,” said RWS CEO Benjamin Faes in the May 5, 2026 press release announcing the deal.

“Together we can offer a single global brand guardianship solution to our existing clients and meaningfully expand our addressable market.”

RWS said in an earlier stock exchange filing about the deal that the acquisition expands its total addressable market by about GBP 2bn. The filing also said Obviously has around 30 employees and generated approximately GBP 2.5m in revenue with a loss of about GBP 1.5m in the 12 months through February 28, 2026.

The deal is a sign of commitment to the IP services business, which, along with AI data services, is driving growth at RWS, according to the company’s most recent earnings announcement.In an appearance on SlatorPod on April 2, 2026, Faes said that IP services is “a market where RWS has created new services recently; we have diversified…It’s a great business actually.”