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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Anki is closing the doors on its toy robot business [engadget.com]

Anki, the startup responsible for adorable robotics [engadget.com], is closing its doors and will terminate nearly 200 employees Wednesday. CEO Boris Sofman broke the news to staff today, Recode reports [recode.net]. In a statement provided to Engadget, the company said, "A significant financial deal at a late stage fell through with a strategic investor and we were not able to reach an agreement."

The news comes as a surprise, given that things seemed to be going well for Anki. Since its launch in 2010, the startup has raised more than $200 million in venture capital. Its main products Cozmo [engadget.com] and Vector [engadget.com] seemed to be successes. Vector launched last fall after a $2 million Kickstarter [engadget.com] campaign, and most recently, it received Alexa integration [engadget.com]. And Cozmo has been credited with teaching kids to code [engadget.com]. The only shadow of a doubt seemed to be that the devices appeared more like toys [engadget.com] than the advanced, AI-based robots that they were. Still, Microsoft, Amazon and Comcast had reportedly expressed interest in acquiring the company.

Learn to code job-killing robots.

Also at Recode [recode.net].

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