PlayShifu, the early-learning toy company helping children develop a spectrum of foundational skills through physical and digital play, has announced a Series B fundraise of $17 million.
The announcement preceded the launch plan of eight new products in 2021. Inventus Capital India led the round, with Inflexor Ventures joining as a new investor. Chiratae Ventures and Bharat Innovation Fund also participated again, a release said.
PlayShifu was founded to help parents convert their children’s screen time into meaningful phygital play– the interaction of tactile toys with a digital device–combined with gamifying early learning skills.
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The company witnessed 150% year-over-year growth in revenue for the third consecutive year and nearly doubled the team from 60 members in 2019 to 115 people in 2020.
It also doubled user base from 250,000 in 2019 to over 6,00,000 in 2020. The company also launched five new products, including CES
“We are proud of our team for their incredible achievements during the pandemic while working remotely for an entire year,” PlayShifu CEO and co-founder Vivek Goyal.
“The effort translated into a successful Series B to help take the brand to new heights in 2021 and beyond,” he added.
“With screen time for children ages 4 to 9 averaging as high as five hours per day, we have a responsibility to help kids develop their early-learning skills in this digital age. We plan to expand our product range from 12 to 30 products to cover over 20 early-learning skills by 2022,” the CEO added.
PlayShifu has also grown its online and retail presence immensely. Due to several new global brick-and-mortar and ecommerce partnerships, the brand is now available in 35 countries.
“As we continue to introduce new products to further the development of early-learning skills in Generation Alpha, we’ve partnered with several retailers around the world to diversify our reach,” said PlayShifu co-founder Dinesh Advani.
