Anki, the robotics company that has raised over $200 million in venture capital, is laying off its entire staff and the startup is shuttering, Recode has learned. Anki Teknology SRL 31 mins The MGD Project, located in the Romanian Black Sea, consists of five offshore production wells (1 subsea well at Doina and 4 platform wells at Ana field), a subsea gas production system over the Doina well which will be connected through an 18 km pipeline with a new unmanned production platform located over Ana field.
San Francisco-based consumer robotics company Anki Inc. is shutting down after raising about $200 million in venture capital funding later.
Jdg twitch login. Founded in 2010 by Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute graduates, Anki claimed to be dedicated to bringing artificial intelligence and consumer robotics to people’s everyday lives. During its time it launched a number of smartphone-controlled toys, none of which was properly artificially intelligent despite the hype and promise.
Anki’s first release was the Anki DRIVE, unveiled by Apple Inc. Chief Executive Tim Cook during his keynote at the 2013 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. Described as part toy and part video game, Anki DRIVE consisted of smartphone-controlled cars that were claimed to have some level of AI.
Later products included Vector, a so-called home robot whose utility, according to the product page, included being able to hold a discussion about weather and work as a very expensive stopwatch.
While arguably a glorified toy company pretending to be an artificial intelligence startup, the company did employ nearly 200 people, all of whom are now out of a job.
“In a teary all-hands meeting on Monday morning, CEO Boris Sofman told his staff they would be terminated on Wednesday and that close to 200 employees would be paid a week of severance, according to people familiar with the matter,” Recode reported.
Sofman is also said to have told employees that a new round of VC funding had fallen through at the last minute. Marble on stream.
The company is claimed to have “approached” $100 million in revenue in 2017 and perhaps even more unbelievably had fielded “acquisition interest” from companies that included Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc. and Comcast Corp.
Even among the hype of Silicon Valley and San Francisco Bay area startups, at some point, a healthy dose of skepticism is required. Comcast wanted to buy a toy company? Sure, stranger things have happened.
Investors in the company included Two Sigma Ventures, Index Ventures, JP Morgan Chase & Co., Andreessen Horowitz, C4 Ventures and Silicon Valley Ventures.
Anki isn’t the first company in the consumer robotics market, such as it is, to fail. Mayfield Robotics Inc., the maker of another completely useless “home robot,” shut its doors in August.
Photo: Anki
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Update on December 26, 2019: Anki’s assets have been acquired by edtech startup Digital Dream Labs. Read Story.
StretchTech won its patent infringement lawsuit against Anki, the once-popular consumer robotics company that closed in April 2019. The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled (PDF) Anki directly and indirectly infringed on the following three audio-related StretchTech patents:
U.S. Patent No. 9,913,054 — System and method for mapping and displaying audio source locations (issued to StretchTech on March 6, 2018)
U.S. Patent No. 9,042,563 — System and method to localize sound and provide real-time world coordinates with communication (issued to StretchTech on May 26, 2015)
U.S. Patent No. 8,704,070 — System and method for mapping and displaying audio source locations (issued to StretchTech on April 22, 2014)
Anki Tech Support
The Robot Report recently broke the news that Anki’s patent portfolio is up for sale. This ruling certainly won’t make potential buyers happy as it states Anki and its successors, among many other parties, are prohibited from “infringing any of the claims of the Asserted Patents in any manner, by making, using, or selling any products that fall within the claims of the Asserted Patents.”
In a separate ruling (PDF), the court “denied for now” a seizure order in favor of StretchTech. It said StretchTech can “re-apply for this relief following additional submissions to this Court.”
StretchTech filed the complaint on June 7, 2019. In the lawsuit, StretchTech said, “Since 2012, StretchTech has dedicated significant resources to developing and perfecting its sound sourcing technology. From its inception, StretchTech has been focused on enhancing the hearing capabilities of machines and computers to create the most natural way of communicating with technology. StretchTech’s patented proprietary hardware and software identify the locations of sound in any 3D space, giving computers similar functionality to the human ear.”
Anki was on the other side of a patent infringement case in 2015. It sued China Industries Ltd. for willful patent infringement in March, but the companies settled, and the case (PDF) was dismissed in December 2015.
Anki Vector Linus Tech Tips
Anki abruptly shut down despite raising about $200 million in funding. It made more than $325 million in revenue since it was founded in 2010. It made $118 million in gross revenue in 2018. Twitch site. A recent teardown video, however, shed light on the complex, costly manufacturing process involved with building Anki’s Vector robot.
Anki Technique
Two of Anki’s co-founders have publicly acknowledged they have moved on. In August 2019, Hanns Tappeiner was named Director of Product Development at Apple’s Special Projects Group. Boris Sofman in June 2019 joined Waymo as its Director of Engineering, Head of Trucking.