RIP, Cozmo and Vector

Vector. © Anki.

Sad new for the techno gadget world: Anki, the creator of the adorable miniature robots Cozmo and Vector, is closing shop, laying off some 200 employees. The reason given by Boris Sofman, CEO of the San Francisco-based company, is the failure of the latest round of financing. Anki had already raised 180 million dollars in venture capital. This failure could imperil the lives of robots that have already been homed, since many of their functions, such as Vector’s vocal recognition, are managed on the cloud by servers payed for by Anki. Anki owners can only hope that a company like Google or Amazon will snap up the technology.

⇨ Recode, “The once-hot robotics startup Anki is shutting down after raising more than $200 million.”