Overview: AI-Driven Patent Filing Gets a $20 Million Boost
Ankar, a startup building artificial intelligence tools to streamline the patent filing process, has closed a $20 million Series A round. The investment marks a significant vote of confidence in a niche but increasingly critical segment of the tech ecosystem: automating the often time-consuming, high-stakes work of securing intellectual property protection for innovative technologies. The round underscores a broader investor interest in AI-powered back-office solutions that can shorten timelines and reduce costs for researchers and companies moving fast in competitive markets.
Founders and Vision
Ankar was founded in 2024 by Tamar Gomez and Wiem Gharbi, two veterans who crossed paths at Palantir. Their shared experience navigating the patent system exposed them to a bottleneck: in many cases, teams spend months translating novel inventions into patent-ready documentation, while legal review and prior art searches can drain valuable resources. Gomez brings a business perspective to the venture, balancing strategy with customer empathy, while Gharbi contributes a strong technical background to steer product development. Together, they envisioned a platform that blends natural language processing, automation, and domain-specific expertise to accelerate patent workflow from idea to issued patent.
What Ankar Does
The core offering centers on AI-assisted patent drafting, prior art search, and workflow automation. Users input a description of a new invention, and the platform helps generate claim sets, description sections, and supporting figures aligned with filing standards. It also crawls relevant patent databases and literature to surface potential prior art, assess areas of overlap, and suggest language to differentiate a new invention. In addition, Ankar automates routine administrative tasks—docketing, deadline tracking, and compliance checks—so legal teams can focus on strategy and prosecution. This dual focus on substantive drafting and back-office efficiency addresses both throughput and quality concerns in patent practice.
Market Need and Customer Value
For technology companies, academia, and startups pursuing IP protection, time is often the enemy. Delays in drafting or discovering conflicting prior art can lead to lost protection, increased costs, or weaker patent positions. Ankar’s AI-driven approach aims to shorten cycle times, reduce human error, and lower the cost barrier to filing patents, especially for researchers who may not have in-house IP teams. Early adopters typically seek faster turnaround on applications, more consistent claim construction, and better alignment with international filing strategies. By enhancing both quality and speed, Ankar positions itself as a critical partner in the early stages of technology commercialization.
Funding Details and Strategic Implications
The Series A round, amounting to $20 million, reflects strong investor appetite for AI-enabled legal tech and IP workflow tools. While traditional patent firms have long dominated the space, the emergence of AI-powered platforms offers the promise of scalable, repeatable processes. For Ankar, the capital will likely fund product expansion, regulatory compliance features across jurisdictions, and deeper integration with patent offices and enterprise software stacks. The investment also signals confidence in a business model that combines software-as-a-service elements with specialized know-how in patent law and technology domains.
Leadership and Culture
Gomez and Gharbi’s leadership style emphasizes user-centric design and measurable impact. By collaborating with patent professionals during product development, they aim to ensure the platform not only automates repetitive tasks but also embeds best practices in claim strategy and prosecution. As the company scales, maintaining a strong focus on privacy, data security, and ethical AI use will be crucial given the sensitive nature of patent data and competitive intelligence involved in prior art analysis.
What Lies Next for Ankar
With fresh capital, Ankar is likely to accelerate product maturation, expand the team, and broaden its go-to-market reach. Key milestones may include deeper international filing support, enhanced analysis of patent landscapes, and partnerships with research institutions or corporate IP departments seeking to standardize and speed up their invention protection workflows. As AI continues to transform how legal and IP functions operate, Ankar’s approach could become a benchmark for automating highly technical drafting tasks while maintaining the rigor demanded by patent offices worldwide.
Industry Context
AI-enabled patent tooling sits at the intersection of legal tech and AI innovation. The field is fueled by growing demand for faster, more accurate IP protection in sectors such as biotechnology, software, and hardware. Investors are watching for platforms that can demonstrate clear efficiency gains, robust ACL and compliance features, and a scalable model that can serve both startups and large corporations.
About the Team
Gomez and Gharbi’s combined expertise—from business strategy to advanced AI—positions Ankar to translate complex patent requirements into practical software workflows. Their journey from Palantir to founding a company underscores a broader trend of experienced technical leaders channeling AI capabilities into practical, domain-specific tools for professional use.
Conclusion
As Ankar enters its next funding phase and scales its platform, the company stands at a pivotal moment for AI-assisted patent filing. By marrying intelligent drafting with automated workflow management, Ankar aspires to redefine how innovators protect their breakthroughs—faster, cheaper, and with greater confidence.
