Setback
Anki shut down and let its staff go after a late funding deal with an investor fell through. It had raised $182 million and said it had sold 1.5 million robots.
A delay, pause or setback
What the source says
“A significant financial deal at a late stage fell through with a strategic investor”
What it means
Vector and Cozmo, from Anki, then Digital Dream Labs, is at stage 5 of 5 on our ladder: regulator-cleared or mass market. A setback stays on the record next to the milestones; the stage moves down only when the rules say so.
Human help: Our sources report it working without human help.
More on Vector and Cozmo
- Pennsylvania's attorney general sued Digital Dream Labs. About 14,000 orders for Vector 2.0, Cozmo 2.0 and another robot were placed from 2020 to 2024, and most were never filled. No Cozmo 2.0 was delivered.
- The planned 2020 relaunch of Vector and Cozmo slipped. Digital Dream Labs said a new distributor would get them on shelves for the 2021 holidays, and that it was making Vector open-source.
- Digital Dream Labs, a Pittsburgh education-tech startup, bought all of Anki's assets and said it planned to make more Vectors and Cozmos.
- Anki said it had sold 1.5 million robots since it started.
- Anki announced Vector, a small home robot priced at $250, due out that October.
- Anki's first robot, Cozmo, was an educational robot for children. The company said it was a top-selling holiday gift in 2017.