Ankar Raises $20M Series A to Accelerate and Protect Innovation
QUICK TAKE
- Ankar is the AI operating system for the entire innovation lifecycle – a strategic platform that helps companies map patent landscapes, identify opportunities, and guide decisions from discovery through to protection and monetization
- Intangible assets now comprise the vast majority of S&P 500 value, making the ability to understand the patent landscape a critical strategic capability from inventors to C-suite
- As AI compresses development cycles and makes ideas more easily replicated, Ankar provides the infrastructure companies need to spot opportunities, protect inventions, and maintain competitive advantage
- Index is doubling down after leading the seed, backing Ankar's path to becoming the infrastructure layer for global innovation
INDEX PERSPECTIVE
By Bastian Hasslinger, Partner
The vast majority of S&P 500 assets are intangible: it's the intellectual property, the ideas, the patents that drive the value and growth of most companies today. The ability to accurately map the patent landscape to understand what exists, and where opportunities lie, is a key strategic tool for all levels of an organisation, from inventors and R&D professionals through to C-Suite executives.
This is why we are excited about what Ankar has built. It would be simple to describe the platform as a tool for registering and protecting intellectual property. And it's true that Ankar greatly accelerates the process of assessing a patent's viability and registering the IP. It's true that Ankar makes protecting and therefore monetising a patent far more effective and straightforward than any existing solution. But it is also so much more than that.
As AI tightens development times and makes ideas more easily replicated than ever, Ankar is set to become a foundational tool for companies across the entire lifecycle of any invention, from planning and discovery through to execution and protection.
By enabling teams to analyse existing patents and map the surrounding landscape, they can quickly spot opportunities and discard ideas that can't be effectively monetised. It means Ankar is set to become a critical enabler for a global economy which depends on innovation for growth. This is why, along with a truly impressive founding team, we're doubling down on our investment in Ankar, after leading the startup's seed round.
THE DETAILS
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.”
Published — Dec. 17, 2025
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