Startup Obituary : Anki

🚀 The Spark

In 2013, a then-unknown robotics startup took the stage at Apple’s WWDC. Tim Cook introduced it himself.

The demo? Toy cars. But unlike anything before—these cars raced themselves, made decisions, and adapted in real time. Their creators weren’t toymakers. They were Carnegie Mellon PhDs: Boris Sofman, Hanns Tappeiner, and Mark Palatucci. And their startup, Anki, wasn’t just making toys—it was trying to bring robotics and artificial intelligence into people’s everyday lives.

Sofman later said:

Backed by top-tier VCs, Anki wasn’t building apps or APIs. It was building companions.

🤖 The Machines

Anki’s first product, Anki Drive, looked like a game—but under the hood was cutting-edge robotics. Using computer vision and AI, cars stayed on track, blocked opponents, and learned as they raced.

Overdrive, a modular follow-up, extended the concept. But Anki’s true breakout came in 2016 with Cozmo—a pint-sized robot bursting with personality.

Cozmo wasn’t just cute. It could:

• Recognize faces

• Express frustration when it lost games

• Navigate obstacles with ease

• React emotionally in real time

TIME named Cozmo one of 2016’s Best Inventions. By 2018, over 1.5 million Cozmos had shipped. Its companion app even taught kids to code.

Then came Vector—a more grown-up version with Alexa integration, cloud updates, and autonomous charging. At $249, it was a statement: robots weren’t just toys anymore.

💸 The Fuel

VCs believed. Anki raised $257 million from the likes of:

• Andreessen Horowitz (Marc Andreessen called it “the best robotics startup” he’d seen)

• Index Ventures

• J.P. Morgan

• Two Sigma Ventures

For a while, it worked. Anki generated nearly $100M/year in revenue, had 200 employees, and a loyal base of developers and educators. Cozmo was used in college robotics classes. Vector became a CES darling.

⚠️ The Fault Lines

But under the surface, cracks were forming.

Anki straddled an awkward line: Was it a toy company or a robotics platform?

Cozmo delighted kids but didn’t scale into recurring revenue. Vector was feature-rich—but at $249, it wasn’t an impulse buy. Its pitch as a “home robot” struggled next to Alexa devices that cost less and did more.

Meanwhile, margins were tight. Each robot had hundreds of parts, and without subscriptions, every sale was a one-off. A planned software platform never launched. R&D costs soared. A new $50M–$100M round was in the works—but in April 2019, it fell through.

💥 The Shutdown

On April 29, 2019, Anki shut down.

In a tearful all-hands meeting, Sofman told 200 employees they’d be let go—most with just a week’s severance. The company had sold over 3 million robots. It had made robots lovable. But it couldn’t make them sustainable.

Sofman’s final words to the team captured the heartbreak:

🔁 The Aftermath

Later that year, Digital Dream Labs acquired Anki’s IP. They relaunched Cozmo and Vector, but updates were slow. The original Anki.com domain is gone. The founders moved on—Sofman joined Waymo and now runs a new stealth startup.

Cozmo and Vector live on—but the Anki dream of a robotics platform for everyone faded.

🧠 Lessons for Founders and VCs

• Know your category: Are you a toy? A tool? A platform? Mixed signals confuse both customers and investors.

• Hardware is brutal: Complex parts, tight margins, and fickle demand make scale hard. Plan for it from day one.

• Don’t wait to diversify: Subscription services or software upgrades could’ve extended Anki’s runway.

• Have a backup plan: One failed funding round shouldn’t kill a $100M-revenue company. Keep options open.

As Marc Andreessen once said:

Anki found the magic. It just couldn’t hold onto it.

Anki Scorecard

🌟 Final Words

Anki didn’t fail because it lacked vision. It failed because it built lovable robots before the market was ready to support them.

But for millions of users—for kids, parents, and curious engineers—Cozmo and Vector weren’t just toys. They were friends. And for a brief moment, robots really did feel alive.

🕯️ Here’s to Anki. A reminder that innovation without business sustainability is a dream with a deadline.

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Cheers,

Ram

StartupObituary.com 

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Startup Obituary is for educational purpose only not a business advice.

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