Invention is how humanity’s biggest challenges are solved, and AI is fundamentally changing how inventions become protected assets. It enables patent teams to analyse novelty, draft claims, and evaluate prior art with unprecedented depth and speed. Yet fragmented tools, gaps in AI trust, and slow enterprise adoption have held organisations back. Ankar solves these challenges with an operating system that unifies the entire patent lifecycle into one secure workflow for the first time.

Its platform orchestrates how ideas become defensible IP globally, bringing novelty assessment, drafting and prosecution together so teams can do in hours what once took weeks. Acting as an assistant rather than an autopilot, Ankar delivers end-to-end strategic patent generation with stronger claims, clearer framing and more defensible portfolios.

Fixing a broken system

Patents can take up to 24 months to secure and still rely on scattered Word documents, spreadsheets, emails and outdated IP systems. This inefficiency slows teams down and discourages inventors from filing altogether.

Ankar replaces this fragmented process with a unified platform that supports the entire patent lifecycle. It performs instant novelty and prior-art analysis across 150+ million patent applications and 250+ million scientific publications, turns invention disclosures into high-quality draft applications with strategic guidance on claim strength and scope, and consolidates all history and analysis into a single view when examiners respond – enabling faster, stronger and more defensible outcomes, just as competition for IP is intensifying.

Built for security in the AI era

Patent workflows require the highest confidentiality in the enterprise world, and Ankar has been built for this. Co-founders Tamar Gomez and Wiem Gharbi previously built mission-critical software at Palantir in Europe and the US, experience that now shapes Ankar’s approach to secure patent retrieval, claim-level reasoning, LLM governance, and AI safety inside enterprise-controlled environments.

This matters more than ever: generative AI is making it easier for competitors to replicate designs, architectures and experimental approaches. As a result, C-suites, especially in automotive, electronics and other R&D-heavy sectors, are prioritising deeper, more defensible patent portfolios to secure future revenue.

The company’s platform helps patent teams go from idea to granted patent in a fraction of the time, delivering an average 40% boost in productivity and hundreds of hours shifted to high-value work. This is vital, as figures show that intangible assets such as IP now make up to 90% of the value of S&P 500 companies, yet patent professionals still spend around half of their time on manual, administrative work. Ankar is already showing meaningful adoption, with 96% of users saying they would recommend the platform to colleagues. 

Accelerating growth

This Series A brings Ankar’s total funding to $24 million. The capital will be used to double the company’s 20-person team, expand engineering, product and design, and grow Ankar’s go-to-market organisation to support rising demand across Europe and the US. The long-term ambition is to become the software layer that orchestrates how ideas turn into defensible patents globally, which will be the core infrastructure of innovation in the AI era.

Tamar Gomez, Co-Founder of Ankar AI, said: “Invention is how we solve humanity’s biggest challenges, yet the systems that protect those ideas are decades out of date. AI will redefine how global organisations innovate over the next five years, turning IP from a cost centre into a growth driver. The companies that adopt Ankar now will shape the future of innovation.”

Wiem Gharbi, Co-Founder of Ankar AI, said: “Patents sit at the intersection of deep technical knowledge and precise legal reasoning, and AI can finally unlock real leverage in that process. Ankar gives professionals the analytical depth they’ve never had before, enabling stronger strategy and better protection. Atomico shares our ambition to build the infrastructure behind the next generation of global innovation.”

Andreas Helbig, partner at Atomico, said: “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.”

Jean-Yves Legendre, Competitive IP Intelligence Manager at L’Oréal, said: “Most vendors came with a fixed solution. With Ankar, they began with our needs. They understood patents, spoke our language, and adapted to our needs by configuring their existing technology into a solution that fits our reality.”

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