An AI platform aimed at modernising how companies and law firms capture and protect patents has raised a $20 million (£15m) Series A round led by Atomico, with Index Ventures doubling down and Norrsken VC and Daphni also participating.
Ankar AI said it will use the funding to grow its team and expand further into the US, taking total funding to $24m.
The London-based business is positioning itself as an “operating system” for patents, arguing that while AI can help teams assess novelty, draft claims and evaluate prior art faster than ever, adoption has been held back by fragmented tools and a lack of trust in how AI is used in sensitive workflows.
It says it brings the entire patent lifecycle into a single secure workflow, combining novelty assessment, drafting and prosecution so teams can complete work “in hours what once took weeks”.
The company is targeting a process that remains heavily manual. Patents can take up to 24 months to secure and often involve scattered Word documents, spreadsheets and emails, alongside older IP management systems.
Its platform aims to replace this with a unified process, including instant novelty and prior-art analysis across more than 150m patent applications and 250m scientific publications.
Security is central to its pitch, with patent workflows among the most confidential in enterprise environments.
Co-founders Tamar Gomez and Wiem Gharbi previously built software at Palantir in Europe and the US, which the company says has shaped its approach to secure patent retrieval, claim-level reasoning, LLM governance and AI safety inside enterprise-controlled environments.
The fresh capital will also be used to double Ankar’s 20-person team, expand engineering, product and design, and grow its go-to-market organisation to support demand across Europe and the US.
“Invention is how we solve humanity’s biggest challenges, yet the systems that protect those ideas are decades out of date,” said Gomez.
“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.”
Gharbi added: “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.”