Hooray! Sifteo raises funding from Foundry Group and True Ventures
Posted May 10th, 2010 by Jeevan Kalanithi under News
We are excited to announce a new round of funding from Foundry Group and True Ventures. We partnered with True when we formed the company last summer, and we’re proud to have Foundry join us now. This funding is going to allow us to ramp up and get the product out to the world!
We’ll be sharing more about what we are up to in the coming months, so stay tuned. Thanks to everyone for all your support! We’re plowing forward, full steam ahead, 88 miles per hour. (By the way, if you are smart & creative & hard-working & nice and interested in joining us, check out our job posts.)
If you aren’t that familiar with what we are doing, you can read a little press blurb we put together regarding this news, included here:
Sifteo Inc. Closes Series B Funding with Foundry Group and True Ventures
Sifteo Inc., a consumer electronics startup based in San Francisco, has raised $9M in Series B funding from Foundry Group and True Ventures. The company aims to launch the world’s first tabletop game console. Their product – Siftables – is a collection of smart physical tiles that enables new ways to play and learn. Siftables gained attention at TED 2009 when it was still a research project at MIT. The creators of Siftables, David Merrill and Jeevan Kalanithi, co-founded Sifteo in July 2009 to commercialize their technology.
The startup plans to use the funds to launch a consumer product based on Siftables, and is currently hiring for engineering and game developer positions. Sifteo previously raised $1M in Series A funding from True Ventures and is also supported by grants from the National Science Foundation.
See also Foundry’s announcement, Jason Mendelson’s post, and coverage on peHUB.
Many thanks again to our growing community for all your support and feedback, from forwarding the TED video to friends, to following us on Twitter, Facebook, and our mailing list and volunteering to help us with play tests. It makes our work even more meaningful knowing we’re creating something that has the support of people all around the world.
[...] and Jeevan’s thoughts on the funding as well as their TED talk can be found here and [...]
First congratulations for this great product that I believe will change the way our kids learn.
Learning is becoming more fun, much much more fun.
I will support a bill in the congress where we the tax payers pay for this wonderful tool to make it available to all kids.
Good luck for your new company and I strongly believe that you will come up with even more interesting products.
Regards,
Joseph
can’t wait till these are available commercially. Definitley going to get a few sets for the kids in my classes, (and maybe for me as well!)
I have been following Sifteo for a long time! Your “magic
blocks” have fascinated me from the first time that my grandson saw them on the web—more than a few months ago! I even asked Trevor, then a freshman at Dartmouth, if he could get to one of your demonstrations at the Ted Conference and see if we could connect with you. As a former 3rd grade teacher, and as an Education consultant AND-most importantly….grandmother I, along with your following, was totally intrigued with the “little domino blocks that did unbelievable things” !!!!!
My daughter, her family..My grandson (the now Dartmouth sophomore)—-live in the SFO area–where I believe you have offices. I will be in the area this July and would like VERY MUCH to see your “work area” and the siftables themselves!
Let me know if that is possible.
Thanks-an ardent fan-grandmother and former teacher!!!! Margaret Guerriero 713.963.0603
Houston, Texas
Just wondering if Siftables will be available for X-mas 2010. Thank you, great product!
[...] We invested in Sifteo in May 2010 along with our friends from True Ventures. Sifteo is another HCI investment with its roots in the MIT Media Lab, joining Oblong and EmSense in this part of our portfolio. If you are at CES, check them out in North – 3317A. Categories: My Investments Tags: game mechanics, HCI, sifteo blog comments powered by Disqus /* Brad Feld, a managing director at Foundry Group who lives in Boulder, Colorado. I invest in software and Internet companies around the US, run marathons and read a lot. [...]