In the United States, they can seek government grants; SBIR (Small Business Innovative Research) and (TTR) Technology Transfer Research to fund the early stage development of their technology.
They can contract with third parties such as: venture capital or angel investors to finance a startup or they can sell or license their products to an existing and established company.
Often inventors are interested in expanding their own intellectual property assets through licensing and acquisitions.
For example, a 1999 World Intellectual Property Organization WIPO paper estimated 500 "patent brokers" in the United States in.
[2] However, an October 2015 listing of patent brokerage companies includes only about 57 businesses worldwide.