Toy Talk, the artificial intelligence startup aimed at kids and entertainment and led by former Pixar CTO Oren Jacob, has raised a $ 12 million Series A funding round led by Charles River Ventures, bringing the company’s total funding so far to $ 16 million, a company spokeswoman confirmed Friday.
An SEC filing, first noted by Venturebeat, shows that the company recently raised $ 11.5 million as part of the Series A. The company earlier raised a $ 4 million seed round that was led by Greylock Partners and included First Round Capital, True Ventures (see disclosure) and a number of angel investors, the Toy Talk spokeswoman confirmed.
Toy Talk, which has been described as “Teddy Ruxpin meets Siri,” recently released a teaser video showing the concept behind the startup, which is still in stealth mode. Speaking at GigaOm’s RoadMap conference this week about the importance of good design in building a message, Jacob said the concept behind the company, launching in 2013, should be clear.
Jacob worked for Pixar on Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2 and Finding Nemo, and fellow co-founder Martin Reddy, who worked on artificial intelligence at SRI International, also worked at Pixar on films including Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, and WALL-E.
“Toy Talk is the name of the company – I think it should be pretty obvious what we’re trying to do,” Jacob said at RoadMap.
Disclosure: Toy Talk is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.
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