Website anki.com Type of business Private | Founded 2010 | |
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Industry Robotics and artificial intelligence Products Anki Cozmo
Anki Drive
Anki OVERDRIVE Headquarters San Francisco, California, United States Founders Mark Palatucci, Hanns Tappeiner, Boris Softman Profiles | ||
Anki is a robotics and artificial intelligence startup. Anki programs physical objects to be intelligent and adaptable in the physical world and is designed to solve the problems of positioning, reasoning, and execution in artificial intelligence and robotics. Positioning is the ability to know where an object is in relation to its environment. Reasoning calculates multiple scenarios. Execution is taking the most optimal path to meet an objective.
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Anki intends to apply artificial intelligence to real-life scenarios. The company debuted Anki Drive during the 2013 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference keynote, when Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook took the unusual step of ceding the stage early in his presentation to an unknown company. Anki was "handpicked for a coveted slot as the poster child for what unknown developers can do with iOS" (CNET).
The company, which some have said has started a "consumer robotics revolution," received $50 million in Series A and Series B venture funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, and Two Sigma. In September 2014, Anki announced that it has raised another $55 million in Series C venture funding led by JP Morgan. In June 2016, the company announced its latest round of funding, which amounted to $52.5M, also led by JP Morgan. Total funding to date is $182.5 million. Marc Andreessen and Danny Rimer serve on the company's board, in addition to the three co-founders. In his personal blog, Andreessen called Anki "the best robotics startup I have ever seen."
History
Anki was founded by Boris Sofman, Mark Palatucci, and Hanns Tappeiner, who met in the robotics Ph.D. program at Carnegie Mellon University. Their idea, conceived in 2007 in a Palo Alto, Calif. café, was to build an intelligent gaming system in which multiple robots interact and work together. The founders spent many nights and weekends on the project while still in school, developing the fundamental technology. Anki was officially founded in 2010 and is headquartered in San Francisco.
Company Milestones
Products
Anki's first product, Anki Drive, was released in Apple stores in the U.S. and Canada, on Apple.com and Anki.com starting Oct. 23, 2013. It retails for $149.99, with additional cars available for $49.99 and Expansion Tracks for $69.99 Anki Drive is the first product to use Anki technology and is said to be "the first video game programmed for the physical world." Anki Drive is a racing game that combines an iOS app with physical race cars. Each car is equipped with optical sensors, wireless chips, motors, and artificial intelligence software, designed to analyze thousands of actions every second. The gameplay becomes more immersive and strategic over time. The cars act as characters with individual personality traits and strengths, and users can play against each other or against the Anki system's artificial intelligence. Anki OVERDRIVE was released September 2015 it is the next generation of gameplay, with new features such as modular track pieces for customizable tracks and new gameplay modes such as King of the Hill and Time trial. In October 2016, Anki launched Cozmo in the US, an interactive robot with a big brain, and an even bigger personality.