SUMMARY
Series B funding was led by IIFL AMC, Mankind Pharma Family Office, Aroa Ventures, Manish Choksi from Asian Paints and a clutch of global investors
Miko is an advanced robotics company that creates emotionally intelligent robots leveraging artificial intelligence and the internet of things
The company witnessed a 200% subscription from its targeted raise
Robotics startup Miko has announced that it has raised $28 Mn in Series B funding led by IIFL AMC, Mankind Pharma Family Office, Aroa Ventures – family office of OYO founder Ritesh Agarwal, Manish Choksi from Asian Paints and a clutch of global investors.
Existing investors IvyCap Ventures, Chiratae Ventures, YourNest Capital, Bruno E. Raschle from Schroder Adveq and evangelist Keshav R Murugesh (former chairman, NASSCOM) also participated in the round.
The raised capital will be used to fund product development and strengthen global alliances as the company builds a strong global brand.
This round comes within four months after its previous round led by Ivycap Ventures. The startup claims to have a 200% subscription from its targeted raise.
Founded in 2015 by Sneh Vaswani, Prashant Iyengar and Chintan Raikar, Miko is an advanced robotics company that creates emotionally intelligent robots leveraging artificial intelligence and the internet of things.
Its first product line, the Miko series, creates a gateway of technology that caters to the learning and development needs of children.
According to a report, the edtech market is estimated to grow from $2.8 Bn in 2020 to $10.4 Bn by 2025 — a 3.7x times growth. In the market, Miko is competing with the likes of other Indian startups Playshifu, which creates AR experiences as educational toys; Tinkerly, which provides online coding courses along with hands-on STEM toys for kids of grades 1-12 kids; Smartivity, which offers ‘Augmented Reality Colour and Texture Recognition’ technology, among others.
Miko recently launched Miko 2, a robot with sensory functions, can identify a child’s moods and learn from its environment to intuitively develop a bond with a child. With Miko 2, the startup aims to cut across a complex need-gap of education, technology, and entertainment.
It has also opened its platform to allow child-focused content partners and developers to port their content onto Miko’s platform and make it available to families on subscription. It claims its subscription revenue is witnessing fast growth and expects 50% of topline to be subscription revenue over the next three years.
The startup is present in 140 countries globally and claims to have grown 3x through the pandemic. Miko is also aiming for a portfolio of new products in the coming years.
“Miko has demonstrated strong retention metrics along with consistent and sustainable growth. We are clocking nearly a million interactions every 48-72 hours and are on track to register 500% YoY growth in revenue,” said Vaswani.
