Robotics startup Miko raises $7.5 million in funding

CHENNAI: Robotics startup Miko has raised $7.5 million in Series A funding from Chiratae Ventures, YourNest Venture Capital, investor Bruno Raschle’s family office and a group of angel investors.
The startup's flagship product Miko 2 is a learning robot that engages, educates and entertains kids.
Miko said it would use the new investment for global market expansion in North America, the UK and the Middle East.It also plans to ramp up its product roster with new product development, launches in multiple markets, and increased R&D in the areas of emotional and artificial intelligence.
Founded in 2015, Miko is the brainchild of three IIT-Bombay graduates, Sneh Vaswani, Prashant Iyengar and Chintan Raikar. The Mumbai-based startup has around 120 employees in the US and India.
After the success of their first generation of Miko, the company launched Miko 2, a robot that can see, hear, sense, express, talk, recognise faces, remember names, identify moods, initiate a conversation and learn from its own environment to intuitively develop a bond with a child.
“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,” Sneh Vaswani, co-founder and CEO, Miko, said.
Sudhir Sethi, founder and chairman, Chiratae Ventures, said, “Our firm is thrilled to reinvest in the team at Miko. With success under its belt in India and the Middle East, Miko is on its way to entering 20 million global homes by 2023.”