Osmo is a Palo Alto startup that integrates physical puzzle pieces, board games and blocks with iPad mobile games and content. The company launched in 2013 as Tangible Play and uses the iPad camera in apps like Tangrams to recognize how children arrange pieces and respond in real time. Osmo’s products are used in 22,000 schools globally and are sold in 50 countries. The company will use the $24 million funding to adapt popular titles — Words, Tangram, Newton and Numbers — for the iPhone. It is also partnering with Sesame Workshop and Mattel to develop new character-driven content and has a pending engagement with a research firm to study how its toys impact learning. CEO Pramod Sharma said teachers already recognize the educational value and the company plans to leverage partnerships and product expansion to grow reach. Osmo builds a hardware-based gaming kit that attaches a reflective camera and stand to an iPad and uses physical game pieces (letter tiles, puzzle shapes) to combine real-world play with iPad apps. Its initial titles include Tangram, Words, and Newton, and the company offers customization via my.playosmo.com where users can upload images and word lists. Founded in early 2013 by Pramod Sharma and Jérôme Scholler, Osmo has sold $2 million in pre-orders, including purchases from over 2,000 schools, and hundreds of teachers from over 150 schools are using the product. The kit sold for $49 on pre-order, retails for $99 and is currently sold for $79. Osmo's products are available online and are being rolled into 284 Apple stores in the U.S. and Canada as well as Marbles Toy Stores. The company plans to open its platform to third-party developers and allow further customizations as part of its longer-term roadmap. Tangible Play develops iPad accessories and software that mix augmented reality, animated graphics, and audio with traditional board game elements. The product uses a simple stand with a mirrored cap that lets the iPad camera see the playing surface and recognize physical pieces via computer vision. The company launched two titles at TechCrunch Disrupt — a word-guessing game and a puzzle game called Tangram — and demoed strong engagement, including a mother and daughter playing for an hour. Founders Pramod Sharma and Jerome Scholler bring experience from Google, NVIDIA, LucasArts, and Ubisoft, and the startup was part of Stanford’s StartX accelerator. Tangible Play has focused on games initially but says the platform could enable many non-game applications in the future. The team is running a beta signup and has raised early funding to support the launch.

Total raised

$36M

Funding rounds

3

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Dec 2016