This is a really interesting case and I think there are two paths you could take, depending on what you want to do with your life: 1. Do you want to be the bus

This is a really interesting case and I think there are two paths you could take, depending on what you want to do with your life: 1. Do you want to be the businessperson? Do you want to raise money, start a company, deal with HR, have board meetings, and commercialize your software? If so, then it sounds like you would want to keep this competitor out of the market. At this stage, you could probably achieve that by sending some friendly, politely-worded emails to the parties involved explaining the true origins of the IP. I say you could do this in a friendly way because you are actually helping the investors by giving them a more accurate picture of what could've been a deceptive pitch. I wouldn't necessarily push for them to invest in you because they might be soured by the whole thing, but I'd be open if they expressed interest. At this point, I'd stress don't be mean or aggressive about it - just be helpful and honest. 2. Or do you want to kick back and work on your open source software? If this is the case, and I'm guessing it is, then you probably want to encourage people to raise money based on your IP and then figure out ways to work with them to extract some licensing/consulting fees. If some one raises $1M based on your open-source software, it would be very reasonable for you to get $50K-$100K of that through fees over the next year. Some people are going to be defensive and think that you're "losing" $900K - but you were never going to raise that money in the first place, so how can you "lose" it? Now, how you get your $100K is dependent on circumstance, but it could be in the form of custom development for them, trademark licensing, premium support, premium software add-ons, etc. Overall, your goal is to maintain control/leverage over the IP and knowledge while helping others build a commercial market around it. Good luck.