Case Study: Anki

When it comes to popular beliefs, its been commonly observed that the general public tend to come to the conclusion that startups that make a living of bridging the gap between consumer markets and emerging (or state-of-the-art) technologies always end up as success stories, however, as with other similar misconceptions, there are always companies that disprove such claims. A good example to disprove this commonly shared misconception would be Anki, an American startup which tried to harness advanced robotics and artificial
intelligence (AI) technologies to develop consumer products with intellect and interactive capabilities, ie robotics and AI powered toys.


Anki was officially founded in 2010 by Boris Sofman, Mark Palatucci, and Hanns Tappeiner (all being graduates of Carnegie Mellon University). This technology company was headquartered in San Francisco and had several operational location across Europe. It should be noted that the name of this robotic toy manufacturer might have been inspired by "Enki", an ancient Sumerian deity known for knowledge, crafts, and creation (among other related responsibilities).


It should be noted that Anki had developed and launched four products to the consumer markets and had received seven rounds of investment (excluding seed funding) across its decade long lifespan.


Despite its relatively long lifespan, Anki ceased all operation by the end of 2019 due to the lack of substantial profit and all its assets (including the intellectual property associated with the above-mentioned products) were acquired by Digital Dream Labs. 



List of investors:
- Andreessen Horowitz
- C4 Ventures
- Index Ventures
- JP Morgan Chase
- Two Sigma Ventures
- Silicon Valley Ventures

Member of Anki's Board of Directors:
- Boris Sofman (co-founder)
- Mark Palatucci (co-founder)
- Hanns Tappeiner (co-founder)
- Marc Andreessen (partner at Andreessen Horowitz)
- Danny Rimer (partner at Index Ventures)



Funding Info:

Series A:
Date: 01/01/2012
Number of Investors: 2
Money Raised: $12.8 million

Series B:
Date: 01/06/2013
Number of Investors: 3
Lead Investor: Andreessen Horowitz
Money Raised: $36.7 million

Series C:
Date: 26/09/2014
Number of Investors: 5
Lead Investor: JP Morgan Chase
Money Raised: $55 million

Series D (Round 1):
Date: 27/06/2016
Number of Investors: 5
Lead Investor: JP Morgan Chase
Money Raised: $52.5 million

Series D (Round 2):
Date: 10/03/2017
Number of Investors: 5
Money Raised: $25 million




Products developed by Anki:

Anki Drive & Anki OVERDRIVE:
A racing game that combined an iOS app, called "Anki Drive," with physical automobiles.

Cozmo:
An interactive robot about 4 inches by 3 by 2 inches.

Vector:
A more advanced version of Cozmo