Since the turn of the century, firms in developed economies invest more in intangible capital than in physical capital. Yet firms that are intangible-intensive might struggle to get access to stable sources of financing. In this paper we use unusually detailed data on Norwegian firms to investigate a set of questions: Do intangible-intensive firms appear to be credit constrained? Is this particularly true for younger firms? Does improved access to financing improve their performance? To answer these questions we exploit a reform that was introduced in 2015, allowing firms to use patents as stand-alone collateral. Our results indicate that innovative firms are financially constrained. After the reform was introduced, we see an increase in the number of affected firms accessing bank loans, the average loan sizes, and the number of bank connections. Their share of short term debt decreases. Young firms in particular increase employment and investments in both tangible and intangible capital, and see improved growth of domestic sales and exports.