The London startup Ankar has just completed a 17 million euro Series A round. Less than a year after its first financing which we reported to you last May, this fundraising led by Atomico brings the total funds collected to 20.4 million euros. Index Ventures, already present in the capital, strengthens its participation, while Norrsken VC and Daphni join the round.
The company is tackling the patent life cycle, because while artificial intelligence accelerates the production of innovations, the tools to legally protect them remain archaic. Ankar offers a platform that unifies the entire process, from initial idea capture to interactions with intellectual property offices.
Priority search, novelty analysis, drafting of claims and monitoring of procedures are grouped together in the same environment. AI acts as an analytical assistant, not as an automated writing tool. The ambition is to improve the quality of claims and free up several hundred hours of work towards strategic tasks.
The security aspect structures the positioning of the startup, because in the field of patents, a leak of information can destroy all economic value. Ankar highlights an architecture designed for constrained enterprise environments, with strict governance of language models and tight control of data. A legacy of the careers of Tamar Gomez and Wiem Gharbi, the two co-founders, who worked at Palantir where they worked on critical systems.
The company already counts L’Oréal and the law firm Vorys among its clients. References that weighed in the decision of Atomico and other investors. “Invention is how we solve humanity’s greatest challenges, but the systems supposed to protect these ideas are several decades behind. AI will redefine the way organizations innovate globally over the next five years, making intellectual property a growth lever rather than a cost center,” summarizes Tamar Gomez.
Wiem Gharbi adds: “Patents sit at the intersection of deep technical knowledge and precise legal reasoning, and AI is finally helping to unlock real leverage in this process.”
With these new funds, Ankar plans to double its workforce and accelerate its development in Europe and the United States. The challenge is to establish itself as a software infrastructure for innovation at a time when intangible assets represent a growing share of company value.
