How do you keep your child engaged in a healthy activity and off the idiot box? This was what was running in Vijaybabu Gandhi’s mind a few years ago when he wanted to figure out an activity that his three-year-old son would find exciting.
He did some research, helped by friends Arunprasad Durairaj and Shreenidhi SP. They devised a game, which they decided to sell in their apartments. In 10 days, 100 boxes of the game were sold. The trio had inadvertently stumbled upon a business. Flintobox was soon born.
Gandhi, 34, Durairaj and Shreenidhi SP, who are a year younger, have till date designed hundreds of Flintobox games. Each game, which they call a box, contains things that children in the 3-7 age group can create something from. For instance, with the contents of one such box, a child could create its own kaleidoscope.
“What a kid learns before seven remains with the kid for life,” says Gandhi. Flintobox, he says, tries to cover 12 areas of child development, including imagination, logical reasoning, sensory, cognitive and social skills, thinking and problem solving.
“We are advising them, and hold an equity. They are a very hot start-up,” says Vijay Anand of The Startup Centre.
The firm got incorporated in 2013 and was formally launched in 2014. The first one year was about product development, during which time child specialists and behavioural experts were consulted. It now has a team of fourteen employees, including three who specialise in research and development.
The promoters of Flintobox put together a capital of Rs. 10 lakh, to start with. Angel network GSF gave it a seed funding of Rs. 15 lakh. In 2014, the second round of investment was led by equity crowdsourcing platform Globevestor and fetched Flintobox Rs. 1.65 crore.
“We are now looking at more funding that would be used for further research and expansion into more cities,” says Mr. Gandhi.
Currently, the firm sells 5,000 boxes a month and hopes to scale this up to 25,000 boxes a month by end of 2015. Its annual revenue is Rs. 50 lakh. Its boxes are sold in Chennai, Bangalore, and Hyderabad.
“There is more interest from people in smaller towns now,” says Mr. Gandhi.
Flintobox also wants to enter below-three age category. It has also roped in the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad, for developing new games.