Play-i (www.play-i.com), a company building delightful robots for children to program, today announced that it has raised $8M in series A financing from Madrona Venture Group and Charles River Ventures. This financing follows the recently concluded crowdfunding campaign when Play-i raised over $1.4M in 30 days, taking pre-orders from around the world for almost 11,000 robots.

Play-i's mission is to create a platform of learning and play for children -- empowering them with joy and magic of programming robots at a young age. Play-i recently introduced Bo & Yana -- robots that delight and engage children while teaching them programming concepts. Play-i starts shipping the robots later this year.

Play-i is also announcing a partnership with more than 100 developers who have signed up for early access to its API, and plans to release the API for broader use when the robots are shipped. In addition, Play-i has over 200 schools that have signed up to use Bo & Yana to teach programming in their curriculum. Currently, Play-i is working closely with a subset of these schools to run pilot programs.

'The response to our robots is humbling -- the support from parents and children around the world inspires us,' said Vikas Gupta, co-founder and CEO of Play-i. 'Bo & Yana will arrive with hundreds of hours of play and learning, and we will continue to extend that over time through the software on touch devices.'

Play-i plans to use the series A financing towards growing their team. Play-i has been growing, attracting talent from companies like Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Adobe and Google.

'We are excited to have Madrona and Charles River on board as investors in Play-i. This financing will help us expand our team and invest in building and growing the software platform for Bo & Yana,' said Gupta.

Play-i is hiring engineers and designers passionate about giving children the head start they deserve. Find out more at http://play-i.com/careers.

About Play-i
Play-i (www.play-i.com) makes delightful robots for children to program. The company's mission is to make programming fun and accessible for children even as young as 5 years old. Play-i was founded by Vikas Gupta, Mikal Greaves and Saurabh Gupta -- inventors, designers, programmers and parents. Play-i is hiring people passionate about giving children the head start they deserve. Find out more at http://play-i.com/careers. Play-i is based in Mountain View, CA.