Play Shifu is a Bangalore-based interactive educational games startup that has seen success in a very short period has secured pre-series A funding from IDG Ventures. The amount received as investment has not been disclosed. It is learnt that apart from IDG, IDFC Parampara Fund also participated in this round of funding to Play Shifu.
The significance of Play Shifu’s success can be gauged from two facts; the startup was chosen by Facebook for its FbStart program within just 8-9 months of its incorporation, which is quite rare. FbStart is an initiative by Facebook to encourage mobile developers in growing their ventures by permitting them free access to the tools they require.
The other notable achievement by Play Shifu has been that its product Orboot found place on Kickstarter and this, by itself is being seen as the indication of the capabilities of the company and its domain expertise.
The funding partners have also appreciate how Play Shifu has been able to make use of technologies like augmented reality and virtual reality and apply them commercially to make products that fulfill demands not only domestically but internationally as well.
Play Shifu hopes to use the money to extend its reach, globally, and to strengthen its technology and design team.
With the global toy business being estimated at a sound $90 billion, there is also the growing demand within it for digital toys and games. This is the niche Play Shifu is targeting and has the potential to succeed in it as well.
The company will use the funds now being received in expanding the global reach for its products and to strengthen the technology team working on its different products.
The commercialization of the AR and VR technologies is catching up quite rapidly as seen in some of the startups in the space being picked up for funding by the VCs in recent times. The cases of Kalpnik Technologies, Chymera VR Inc and ShilpMIS Technologies can all be cited as examples.