Miko, a company that makes emotive robots that can engage and educate children is raising a Rs 53.42 crore ($7.5 million) Series A round led by Chiratae Ventures (formerly IDG Ventures India), YourNest Venture Capital, investor Bruno Raschle’s family office and a group of angel investors. The company will use the fresh round of funding for market expansion in North America, UK and the Middle East. Funds will also be used for new product development and R&D in the areas of emotional and artificial intelligence.
Founded in 2015, Miko was started by three IIT Bombay graduates, Sneh Vaswani, Prashant Iyengar and Chintan Raikar, and experts in engineering, mathematics, design and education. The company earlier launched the second iteration of its robot, Miko 2 which can hear, sense, express, talk, recognize faces, remember names, identify moods, initiate a conversation and learn from its own environment.
“Our company has grown by leaps and bounds over the past five years…We’re excited to bring our AI-driven playful learning robots to international markets as a way to meet the needs of today’s parents who seek a positive and trusted gateway of technology which also caters to the learning and developmental needs of children,” said Sneh Vaswani, Co-Founder and CEO of Miko.
According to Sudhir Sethi, Founder and Chairman of Chiratae Ventures said that Miko could cater to 20 million homes across the world by 2023. As part of its international expansion, Miko plans an exciting launch in North America ahead of the holiday season.
Sunil Goyal, Managing Director of YourNest Venture Capital said, “The team at Miko has successfully achieved all of its milestones over the past few years. The team’s execution skills and immense consumer obsession has reaffirmed our faith in their vision. We’re more than happy to reinvest in this round.”
