London-based SaaS firm Ankar AI, which provides a platform that uses AI to analyze, draft, and manage patents, has raised a $20 million Series A led by Atomico, with participation from Index Ventures, Norrsken VC, and Daphni.
- Launched in 2024 by Tamar Gomez and Wiem Gharbi, Ankar develops an AI-powered platform to streamline the patent process for inventors and intellectual property teams.
- The platform supports the entire patent lifecycle, including idea generation, drafting, prosecution, and protection. Using large language models, Ankar analyzes over 150 million patent applications and 250 million scientific publications to identify prior art, assess novelty, and guide the drafting of claims.
- The firm employs a team of 20 and assists with office actions and infringement detection, providing a single, structured view of the patent process. Early customers, including L’Oréal and the law firm Vorys, have reported an average 40% boost in productivity, with hundreds of hours redirected to high-value strategic work.
Details of the deal
- Ankar plans to use the $20 million Series A funding to double its 20-person team, expand engineering, product, and design capabilities, and grow its go-to-market organization to meet rising demand across Europe and the US.
“Tamar and Wiem bring exceptional technical depth and first-hand experience of how broken the patent process is. Their momentum with Fortune 500 companies shows they’re building the right product at exactly the right moment. We’re proud to support their mission as they build the foundational infrastructure for how the world’s most important ideas are protected and commercialised," explains Andreas Helbig, partner at Atomico.
