Image
credit: Osmo
As Fortune
reported earlier this month, Byju’s, an edtech company based in India, announced
it has acquired Palo Alto, CA-based startup learning-through-play firm Osmo for
$120 million.
Named after the teacher Byju Raveendran, who founded the company in
2011, Byju’s is making its first acquisition in the United States to advance
its goals of expanding globally and adding very young children to its user
base.
Byju’s was attracted not only by Osmo’s game sets, but also by
the company technology that allows kids interact in the physical world with the
digital world via the iPad and the Osmo Play System. Together,
their market covers the age range from pre-kindergarten to 12th grade.
What is Osmo Play
System?
Osmo is a
unique gaming accessory, designed with reflective artificial intelligence, a
groundbreaking technology that bridges the real and digital realms. The suite
of Osmo Games includes apps that feature drawing, literacy, physics
puzzles, spatial reasoning, coding, and more. Each one offers an Augmented Reality
experience where the iPad apps bring real-world accessories to life.
The basic Osmo Play System contains a base for the iPad (or
iPhone and Amazon Fire Tablets) to sit in, and a reflective mirror that attaches
to the iPad camera. The reflector adjusts the optics so that the camera is
essentially recording the table area in front of the iPad, which enables the Osmo
apps to "see" the objects placed there.
Image
credit: Osmo
Osmo
created a clever mirror (2) that directs an iPad’s camera to the surface in
front of it (3)
To date, Osmo has sold more than a million playsets in over 42
countries and has been adopted in more than 30,000 schools.
Image
credit: Osmo - A gaming accessory
for the iPad, iPhone, and Amazon Fire tablets that enables digital and physical
play at the same time
Tangible Play Inc. — the business behind the Osmo brand — was
founded in 2013 by former Google engineers Pramod Sharma and Jerome
Scholler, who set out to create “something awesome that inspires the youngest
generation,” while at the same time addressing a concern of many parents about
how to have their children interact with technology without losing the value of
hands-on play.
Osmo Games Portfolio
In an effort to reinvent how children learn, by 2014 the first three Osmo
games, Newton, Tangram, and Words, were launched to
universal praise from parents, educators, industry experts, and most importantly,
with overwhelming support from their most challenging critics - children.
Image
credit: Osmo Newton
Osmo Newton is a
creative problem solving and physics game. Players solve creative physics
puzzles by drawing lines or placing items in front of the screen. Newton
works with any object or drawing - simply place the object/drawing in front of the screen
and manipulate it to guide the falling balls into the target zones.
Image
credit: Osmo Words
In Osmo
Words you compete against Mo to complete word puzzles. It’s a lot like
Wheel of Fortune when you’re attempting to solve the puzzle before anyone else,
but Mo is fast and there are no turns in this game. You just throw letters up
at the screen and hope you solve the problem before Mo.
Since its début, Osmo has expanded its family of games to
include Numbers, Masterpiece, Coding Awbie, Monster,
and Pizza Co., incorporating unique characters, such as Awbie, Mo the
Monster, and the Pizza Co. gang.
Image
credit: Osmo Numbers
The game
is an under-the-sea themed adventure, and children need to release the fish
captured in numbered bubbles back into the water. Using physical number tiles
in front of the iPad, kids must create an equation that reaches the correct
integer shown on the tablet. Once they get the right number, the bubble pops
and the fish is released. When kids get the idea there are many good ways to
solve a problem, math becomes more creative.
Image
credit: Osmo Coding Awbie
Osmo Coding Awbie introduces
kids to coding. They learn logic and problem solving as they take the included
blocks and line them up to make Awbie move through his world. Each block is
different: some get Awbie to jump, others get him to move right, left, or up
and down, and you can attach numbers to each block so Awbie moves that many
spaces.
With Osmo, Byju's plans to immediately up the brand's content
offerings and lower the price of the hardware to make it more accessible to a
wider audience.
"For us to grow, we need to invest in content," said Osmo
CEO Pramod Sharma to TechCrunch. "We have a lot of ideas and have proven a
set of interactions, but a lot can be expanded with more content and levels.
We've proven this is a compelling platform for learning, and we are nowhere
close to scaling it...our goal is to get it to every child."
After the acquisition, Osmo will continue to operate as a
standalone unit in Palo Alto under the direction of Sharma.