Bengaluru-based start-up BiBox, which makes automation kits for school children to build science projects, is set to raise a venture capital round for $10-20 million in the next 6-8 months for expansion in the domestic market as well as scaling up overseas.

“We want to use these funds to expand in other areas in India, besides entering markets such as Europe and Japan,” Madhusudan Namboodiri, co-founder and Director, BiBox, told BusinessLine .

BiBox currently has operations across 60 schools in Bengaluru, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Delhi.

The company has created hardware and software to enable children to build any idea into a prototype.

One can build real-world projects, such as traffic lights, asthma detector, drip irrigation systems, with an easy-to-programme, drag-and-drop software.

BiBox’s hardware component is the electronic brain and a software aspect is used to programme the logic into this electronic brain.

This plug-and-play system is open and scalable, enabling users to attach external components to it to make machines.

Innovative pedagogy “Kids are becoming Google babies and are asking why they are learning what they are being taught. So, we have essentially created pedagogy around this,” he said.

The company has tied up with schools where it runs 15-16 classroom sessions of 80 minutes each. This is apart from a separate retail model where one can buy the automation kit online at Amazon.

“In our sessions with children, we focus on design thinking, technology and entrepreneurship. We believe science and mathematics can’t be taught in silos; aesthetics and usability are also important,” Namboodiri said. The company expects to break-even in the current fiscal.

It recently completed a pilot with the Delhi government.

“Going forward, we want to increase interface with the government at the Centre, as we feel it can help us scale up.”

BiBox, till date, has raised funds of about ₹6.7 crore.

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