Child companion robot company Miko has raised $29 million in its Series C funding round led by 30 investors. This is the second funding for the Mumbai-based startup this year, which earlier raised $6.7 million led by IvyCap Ventures in April.
The round also witnessed significant participation of individuals such as Nidhi Arora, who invested $2.6 million, and Ria Chopra Juneja and Chanakya Juneja, who pumped in $2.1 million each. Oyo founder Ritesh Aggarwal has also invested a little over $1 million in the company.
IIFL invested the largest amount, $6 million, in the company, followed by Chiratae, IvyCap Ventures, and YourNest Ventures which put in $4 million, $3 million, and $2.1 million, respectively.
The company has raised the fresh funds at a post-money valuation of INR 650 crore or $87 million. Following the allotment of fresh shares, promoters’ holding has been diluted from 27.66% to 18.61%.
Miko is an advanced consumer robotics innovation lab passionate about bringing the best of technology to young learners everywhere. The platform also allows child-focused content partners and developers to port their content on Miko and make it available to families on subscription.
Launched in January 2015 by three IIT Bombay graduates - Sneh Vaswani, Prashant Iyengar, and Chintan Raikar, Miko claims to ship its product in more than 140 countries. The robotics startup focuses on creating emotionally intelligent solutions and its products leverage proprietary and state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and Internet-of-Things (IoT).
After the success of the first generation of Miko, the company launched Miko 2, a robot that can see, hear, sense, express, talk, recognize faces, remember names, identify moods, initiate a conversation, and learn from its own environment to intuitively develop a bond with a child.
Miko 2 cuts across a complex need-gap of education, technology, and entertainment, and hence is an enabler for effective parenting.
According to a report, the company's revenue surged by 50% in the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic during the last fundraise.
In July this year, Miko had raised INR 23 crore in a pre-series B round led by Stride Ventures.
With the fresh fundraise, Miko has so far raised over $52 million across equity and debt rounds. The company competes with Indian peers including PlayShifu, Skillmatics, and several others in global markets.
