FLINTOBOX

The founders: 

• Vijaybabu Gandhi, 35, dad of a six-year-old and the key catalyst behind Flintobox, he has previously worked with technology companies including Sun Microsystems, Oracle and July Systems, and is a technology graduate from Madras Institute of Technology.
• Arunprasad Durairaj, 36, merger and acquisition specialist at Samsung Korea and VC investor in early-stage US healthcare start-ups, MBA from Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, bachelor of engineering from Madurai Kamaraj University.
• Shreenidhi SP, 34, previously technology head at Zinghopper, a ride-sharing platform, and before that was a part of technology teams at Societe Generale and TCS.

Based in: Chennai.

Formed in: First box went out in October 2013.

USP of Flintobox: Parents receive, at their doorstep, a carefully designed set of activities based on fresh themes every month. These boxes are for children between 2 and 8 years. These are hands-on activities that will take the child away from the TV and hook him/her with “meaningful content”. 

The backstory: Vijaybabu was concerned that his five-year-old son Aadhav was spending too much time glued to the TV and mobile phones. Knowing that the first six years of his son’s life were when “90 per cent of the development of the brain occurs”, he wanted his son to engage in activities that could aid this development.

“This is when we thought it would be a great service/product if someone could curate new activities and ideas which would engage kids positively, at home, away from TV, and not need the parent’s constant supervision. Since we couldn’t find anyone doing it professionally, we figured that we should probably do it, so that other parents and children could benefit as well,” says Vijaybabu.

Idea for the boxes: “The kits are designed and curated by Montessori experts, child psychologists, pedagogy experts, and game designers. All the activities are completely hands-on and play-based to help the child develop skills and learn concepts,” says Vijaybabu. Activity kits are/will be available in five age categories — 2-3 years, 3-4 years, 4-8 years, 8-10 years (launching in December), 10-12 years (launching in December).
Calcutta on Flinto map: “We are based out of Chennai and currently deliver our products to 35-plus cities in India with about 2,80,000 happy customers. Out of this, Calcutta contributes to two per cent of our orders,” says Vijaybabu.

Price: Rs 2,085 for a three-month subscription and Rs 3,570 for six months.

SMARTIVITY

The team: Tushar A. Amin, 40, BTech from Laxminarayan Institute of Technology and PG in Journalism and Mass Communication,with 2011 IIT-Delhi alumnus Apoorv Gupta, 26, Ashwini Kumar, 27, and Rajat Jain, 26.

Formed in: January 2015.

The big idea: “It was the fourth birthday party of my best friend’s daughter. Apoorv and I were watching kids flit from one toy to another, most of them were new gifts, and all of them were really expensive. None of these toys succeeded in engaging the children for more than five minutes. Even more curiously, once all the gifts were opened, the children started gravitating towards their parents to play some game on a mobile phone,” recounts Tushar.

What made a virtual mobile game more engaging than those actual toys? Was there a way to make physical toys more engaging? Is there a way to create a bridge between the physical and the digital worlds when it came to toys? 

“Over the next couple of months, we had long discussions on this. And then Apoorv and Ashwini decided to quit their well-paying jobs and start something on their own. That is when this chat we had been having turned into a serious business consideration,” says Tushar.

USP of Smartivity: Unlike FlintoBox or Magic Crate, which focus on simpler and broader concepts, Smartivity activities include complex fundamental concepts like simple machines, cam-shaft and gear mechanisms. “The key difference is that other boxes deal with art and craft for younger kids, Smartivity activities are STEM-learning (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) projects for four-to 14-year-olds.”

What makes Smartivity smart: “We are a design and technology innovation hub dedicated to creating engagement-driven, smarter learning-focused activities for children at the juncture of the physical and digital worlds. We only sell single boxes and are present in over 700 stores. Besides DIY activity boxes, we also have a range of AR/VR (augmented reality/virtual reality), robotics, IoT (Internet of Things) and digital products.”

Boxes by the number: Over 75,000 boxes of Smartivity S.T.E.M. activity boxes, Smartivity EDGE Augmented Reality colouring sets and jigsaw puzzles have been shipped. “The progressive-minded and tech-savvy young parents of Calcutta have responded positively to our offerings. The city has emerged as our biggest market in eastern India though we introduced Smartivity there as recently as November.”

Coming up: Smartivity Botz, the company’s smarter learning focussed range of robots for children, are in commercial prototyping stage. The company is also in prototyping stage of Smartivity ICE or Internet-connected engagement activities. “We will launch our dynamic learning-based Internet of Toys and Toys To Life products this year. Our ambition is to ensure cutting-edge technologies like augmented reality and robotics are accessible to every child. Why should a child just colour a sheet with a lion on it when they can actually see the lion come to life using our Smartivity EDGE app? We are designing products that bring the best of technological advances, learning and playful engagement to children.”

Price: Upwards of Rs 249 per box.

COCOMOCO KIDS

The founders: 

• Priyanka Prabhakar, 29, MBA with experience in digital marketing at WebChutney
• Shitij Malhotra, 30, an engineer whose first start-up was around e-learning content and second was a patented medical device which was part of the Stanford India BioDesign programme.

Based in: New Delhi.

Formed in: October 2012.

USP of Cocomoco Kids: “We started three-and-a-half years back as a subscription company and we were called Traveller Kids. We love to travel, and we realised kids in India should be inspired to travel and be exposed to the beautiful world outside their cities. Our expertise is geography and a lot of parents have told us we have made maps more fun for their kids,” says Priyanka.

Subscription to retail: Initially, it was a subscription company with boxes themed on different countries — similar to FlintoBox and Magic Crate. “However, within six months of the company’s formation, we unbundled our boxes and started retailing our games, maps and activity kits individually. Now we retail our games through online stores and toy stores across the country, just like Monopoly, UNO, and so on. Our games are a popular choice as return gifts too,” explains Priyanka.

Boxes by the number: The first box was shipped in October 2012 to nine customers. Today, Cocomoco Kids has 30 games and has sold over 1 lakh units this year.

Teaching can be fun: “The best learning happens when there is no pressure of learning on the child. All our games are fun first, which makes sure the child is thinking he is just playing while the parent is happy the child is learning. Also we feel our games can empower teachers with the correct tools to brighten up the classroom and increase engagement.”

The next move: The company is currently setting up a sales and distribution network in India and has started receiving interest from companies in the US, Canada, Singapore and Dubai.

Price: Upwards of Rs 100  per game.

Have you given your kid an activity box? Share your experience at t2@abp.in