Anki has sold 1.5 million robots

We caught wind pretty early on that Anki’s Cozmo was selling briskly when the adorable little robot temporarily sold out around Christmas 2016. Along with the announcement of the company’s latest robot, the startup released Cozmo sales figures for the first time, and things are, indeed, looking pretty good for the WALL-E-inspired ‘bot.

Turns out the company has sold more than 1.5 million robots to date, including “hundreds of thousands” Cozmos. Not too shabby for a $180 robot toy that admittedly launched with somewhat limited functionality (with the promise to add more in time). Anki also says the device was the best-selling toy in its class for the whole of 2017, which seems to officially put to rest any concern that the pricey robot was going to be too much of a niche device to warrant serious consideration. 

It also gives the company solid footing to launch a robot like the pricier Vector, even as companies like Sphero and Kuri have stumbled. Along with all of that, the company also generated just under $100 million in revenue last year. Anki currently employees 203 and has raised north of $200 million, with a Series D arriving in 2016, no doubt spurred on by some of the early attention the company got when Apple featured its Drive cars at a keynote way back in 2013.

Update: The story, including the headline, has been corrected. Anki has sold 1.5 million robots, not Cozmo robots. Anki says, “we can confirm that we’ve sold hundreds of thousands of our characterful robot.” We regret the error.