Our business grew 150% during pandemic phase: PlayShifu Co-Founder

Virtual learning technologies have received a big boost in the Indian education market and so have augmented reality and interactive tools given the Learn From Home (LFH) being the new normal. Dinesh Advani, co-founder, PlayShifu, in an exclusive conversation with Bizz Buzz, elaborated on early learning experience integrated with augmented reality for education and entertainment. He also said that kids in the age group of 3 to 10 years develop their own strong ideas and how the toys they play with help them develop decision making skills

We have been growing at a rate of 200-250% every year. In 2020, we spent time growing the global footprint for PlayShifu and are now present in more than 35 markets globally, with a majority (90%+) of our sales coming from outside India

With millions of kids at home and parents looking with engaging with kids meaningfully, and us fitting that description, we experienced strong demand during pandemic. But we are growing today as well. Covid has impacted the business positively

How did you decide which age-group to cater to with your products?

We started with augmented reality and later on we realised we can integrate other elements with it such as visual recognition, touch screen technology. We want to be closer to technology because that is what helps us create that edge and the unique selling point of our product. Our focus is very sharp on 3 to 10 years of age group because kids develop their own strong ideas and the toys they play with help them understand decision making skills. Also, the market size for this age group is so huge worldwide that it will keep us busy for the next few years.

Your products exist in more than 30 countries worldwide? Any new countries you may launch your products at in this financial year?

This financial year, we are planning to launch our products to South-East Asia along with some European countries. Apart from that, we believe that we are (present) at the geographies where we want to be. The idea is not to expand ourselves thinner further it is to go much deeper.

Towards the end of this year and beginning of next year, we will be launching in Nigeria, South Africa and few other African countries.

How has the business grown over the years since the inception of the company in 2017?

We have been growing at a rate of 200-250 per cent every year. In 2020, we spent time growing the global footprint for PlayShifu and are now present in more than 35 markets globally, with a majority (90 per cent+) of our sales coming from outside India.

Your company recently concluded its Series B funding and raised $17 million. When was the first round of funding launched? and who are the investors? What is the target set aside for further fund raising?

We first raised our funds back in 2016 where we raised the money from a set of (Business) angels. It was a small cheque of around $3,00,000 at that point in time. Overall, we have raised around $25 million dollars now over the last few years. We recently closed of Series B funding. Our idea is to get to profitability with this fund raise over the next one to one and a half years. Post that, if we need more capital, it's a decision that we make if we want to infuse more capital and grow faster or do we want to grow sustainably, that is a business decision taken at a year or so from now. If we grow very close to profitability, we will actually do a fund rise to turbo charge our growth further. Because as I said, the market is huge, the demand is great. It is the best time to capture more growth in the market.

What kind of penetration do you have in India and what is your presence in the Tier-2 cities?

In India, we sell on our website and various e-commerce websites such as Amazon and Flipkart. We also sell with large retailers such as Hamleys, Chroma, Toys R Us and Landmark in the country. We have very recently started selling with Mom n Pop stores with an idea to get into Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities as well because there is good demand from Tier-2 cities. When we look at our Amazon data, we see Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities for more than 40 percent of our sales.

Are there any plans to collaborate with Edtech companies in India?

There are plans of collaboration but not necessarily with Edtech firms in India. There are firms we are talking outside of India. We are discussing partnerships on a much larger scale in countries like UK and US but right now, we might not collaborate with an Indian firm.

What is the manufacturing set-up of PlayShifu?

Our product is indigenous. All the products are conceptualised in India, but they are not off-the-shelf commodities. We don't white-label our products. We have suppliers in India, US and China. We fulfil world demand via all the three geographies. In India, we have contract manufacturing facilities where we work with these people to make sure they can manufacture upto the quality. We have manufacturing facilities in Karnataka, Maharashtra, our suppliers are based out of Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and couple of other states as well.

What is the manufacturing capacity at present? How were the manufacturing capacities hampered due to Covid-19 induced lockdowns?

The first lockdown that happened in 2020 did impact a lot because it was nationwide. But since then, there have been smaller lockdowns but factories and industries have more or less been operating really well for us, even if with limited capacities. It was a challenge, but with our manufacturing partner, with our team, we have been agile enough to plan in advance and to make sure that we can fulfil the demand.

In terms of capacities, it depends upon product wise. Our overall capacity would be 25,000-30,000 units/month which is moving closer to 35,000-38,000 units/month over the next one year or so.

In your opinion, what kind of future do you see for augmented reality, especially during these times of Learning From Home?

Future is very promising. We already see that four years ago we had to explain a lot about what augmented reality is and now, we don't need to provide such explanations. People are getting more aware. Phone sets and the iPad that they have are getting more powerful which have augmented realities and software built in already. This means four years that only handful of phones were equipped with augmented reality but now these technologies are more widespread.

We are half a decade away where training will happen via augmented reality glasses. This is slowly happening in companies and industries where such training is happening but the price points are not such that they can reach mass consumers. Once they reach the $500 to $1000 price range and they can reach the mass consumers, is when you will see augmented reality really exploding in terms of tech domain, in terms of utility.

What have been the sales trends during the pandemic for your company? Has the business expanded further during this period of pandemic?

We were a digital first company. We first launched online since it is easier. We have very good offline presence as well. And our demand is spread across the world. So, there were times where some countries were not operating online or offline and sometimes when both the channels were on and off.

There were demand shift from one channel to another. At one point there were no offline demand but online demand was through the roof. I would say overall, pandemic gave us a push, we grew 150 percent. So, with millions of kids at home and parents looking with engaging with kids meaningfully, and us fitting that description, we experienced strong demand. But we are growing today as well. Covid has impacted the business positively, I would say.