Two former employees of Palantir have successfully raised $20 million in Series A venture funding for their London-based startup, Ankar. The funding round was led by the venture capital firm Atomico, with participation from Index Ventures, Norrsken, and Daphni. This investment follows an earlier £3 million ($4 million) seed round announced in May, which was also led by Index Ventures.
Founded in 2024 by Tamar Gomez and Wiem Gharbi, Ankar aims to leverage artificial intelligence to enhance the patent filing and management process. The founders met while working at Palantir, where they experienced firsthand the complexities and inefficiencies involved in securing patents for new technologies.
Gomez, who serves as Ankar’s CEO, highlights that the journey from an inventor’s idea to a patentable asset can take years, often hindered by outdated tools and processes. “The tools to do so were incredibly legacy or just non-existent,” Gomez stated. “It was like a hodgepodge of manual processes.” Gharbi, Ankar’s Chief Technology Officer, reinforces this sentiment, emphasizing the need to transform intellectual property from a cost center into a strategic competitive advantage.
The significance of intellectual property (IP) in corporate valuation is growing. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization, intangible assets like IP now account for up to 90% of the value of companies in the S&P 500. Despite this, the systems for protecting these assets remain antiquated, prompting the need for innovative solutions.
Ankar’s platform aims to streamline the patent application process by utilizing large language models. These models can efficiently identify similar phrasing across patent filings, significantly reducing the time required for searches and analysis. The startup’s invention discovery tool examines 150 million patent applications and 250 million scientific publications, generating reports that assess the novelty of inventions and identify existing claims that could overlap.
Gharbi explains, “Patent claims are basically the scope of protection for your invention. Ankar’s tool can help suggest an initial set of claims and then assist the patent attorney in considering options for broadening these claims.” This approach is designed to improve the quality of patent applications rather than merely generating text.
Ankar has already attracted notable clients, including the global cosmetics leader L’Oréal and the law firm Vorys. Early feedback indicates that clients have experienced an average productivity increase of 40%, allowing them to redirect hundreds of hours toward high-value strategic tasks. Jean-Yves Legendre, competitive IP intelligence manager at L’Oréal, praised Ankar for its understanding of patents and adaptability to client needs.
As companies across various sectors, particularly automotive and electronics, ramp up efforts to protect their intellectual property, Ankar is poised to meet this demand. The rise of generative AI has heightened concerns over the ease of replicating product designs and processes, making robust IP protection more critical than ever.
The recent funding will enable Ankar to expand its team, doubling its current headcount of 20 employees and enhancing its engineering, product, design, and go-to-market teams across Europe and the United States. The startup aims to solidify its position as a leader in transforming the patent landscape through innovative technology.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.
