BiMA, a Munich-based startup creating a conscious leisure platform for youngsters, has raised €500k in pre-seed funding to launch its first product, a child-friendly, screen-free projector that transforms bedrooms into immersive, story-driven worlds.
The spherical was led by Antler, the world’s most lively early-stage investor, with participation from a number of distinguished angel buyers, together with the Oetinger Publishing Group, represented by Managing Administrators Julia Bielenberg, Thilo Schmid and Christian Graef, who have been among the many first backers of the kids’s audio platform Tonies. Further buyers embrace Andreas Peters, former Managing Director of Disney; Felix van de Sande, founding father of Kickbase and design company COBE; and Silvia Sommer, an e-commerce professional previously at Birkenstock and Roland Berger, and organiser of the Quick & Curious occasions in Munich for Verena Pausder.
Based in 2024 by Larissa Ruf (CEO) and Greta Garkisch (CTO), BiMA goals to redefine how households expertise play and storytelling by providing screen-free leisure that sparks creativeness and strengthens household bonds. Positioned on the intersection of edutainment, wellbeing and shopper know-how, BiMA represents a brand new strategy to family-friendly innovation.
The funding will help BiMA’s market entry, together with manufacturing, advertising and content material growth, in addition to crew growth. The corporate plans to launch an preliminary batch of 1,500 projectors later this 12 months.
In Germany alone, there are 3.5 million households with youngsters aged 0–5, representing a possible market of greater than €730 million. Throughout Europe, this determine rises to 17 million households and an addressable market of round €3.7 billion. Globally, BiMA estimates over 420 million households on this section, creating a possible market price greater than €88 billion.
Larissa Ruf, co-founder and CEO of BiMA, stated: “Most toys are designed to maintain children busy, and that’s completely tremendous. However we needed to create one thing totally different: a product that brings households collectively on the most significant time of day. With BiMA, evenings develop into magical moments of connection and creativeness.”
Julia Bielenberg, Managing Director at Oetinger Publishing Group, commented: “We see BiMA as a pure continuation of our custom of storytelling innovation. Simply as Tonies created a brand new manner for households to expertise tales, BiMA has the potential to redefine the best way youngsters work together with creativeness, creativity, and calm.”
Ruf and Garkisch, each from Munich, met over six years in the past by Academy Seek the advice of Munich, certainly one of Germany’s main scholar consultancies. They later based their very own consultancy earlier than launching BiMA, combining backgrounds in schooling, know-how and design with expertise from Schleich, Siemens AI Lab, Microsoft, Accenture and different world firms.
Christoph Klink, Associate at Antler, stated: “Larissa and Greta mix actual ardour with deep industrial and area experience. They’re constructing a product that may immediately enhance bedtimes and studying for youngsters and households in Germany and throughout Europe. We’re delighted to have backed BiMA from inception and have each confidence of their future progress.”
