Romanian team rolls out crowdfunding campaign for kids’ learning assistant

Bucharest startup Aliens by Daria, the developers of the voice-activated personal assistant for children Woogie, has started a crowdfunding campaign for the product to enter the production phase. The campaign has been started at www.indiegogo.com, with the aim of raising a total of USD 75,000. Woogie is a voice-activated, English-speaking AI personal assistant for children aged 6 and older that engages kids in conversations, interactive games and studying according to their passions, interests, and hobbies. It is meant to provide “a safer way for parents to introduce technology into their children’s lives without the need for screens,” according to a product description at crunchbase.com. Parents are always in control through a mobile app and decide what content to make available to their child or what updates need to be added, depending on the child’s interests. Woogie learns things related to the kid’s interests based on everyday conversations, and the more conversations take place, the more relevant it becomes. It doesn’t browse the web for information but has the educational content already stored in its memory. Aliens by Daria was established by Bogdan Coman and Victor Drâmbă and works with a team of 8 people in London and Bucharest, according to crunchbase.com. Victor Drâmbă is not a member of the team anymore. In January 2017, the developers of Woogie have been accepted as full members in the IoT Security Foundation and are implementing strict development procedures that make the product safe. They are also working with KidsSafe for getting COPPA certification in October of this year. Coman told Qz.com last year that the US is the target market for Woogie “because of the greater user potential.” Nevertheless, the product will be selling in Romania as well. “The addressable market is 6-to-12-year-old kids with both parents in the labor force and a household income of more than $50,000 a year—in the US there are 30 million potential customers,” Coman told Qz.com. Throughout the Indiegogo campaign, Woogie costs USD 99, while afterwards its price will be USD 109. Woogie's retail price is USD 139. editor@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Woogie Facebook Page)