Our funding is announced

This place was supposed to have had a tidy by then, but the corporate site was a bit of a lower priority than dealing with live customers! New site coming soon.

Meanwhile, we are delighted to announce our funding:

MakieLab Announces Alpha Launch of MAKIES, and $1.4M Seed Investment

3D-printed MAKIES action dolls making their way to early customers

London and Helsinki, June 7, 2012.

Smart toys company MakieLab announces the open alpha launch of MAKIES, the first ever user-designed, 3D-printed action doll. On http://makie.me customers are designing and sharing digital avatars that are brought to life via 3D-printshops across London.

“We’ve seen amazing levels of creativity from our customers since letting the first few in during open alpha just a few weeks ago”, says Alice Taylor, founder and CEO of MakieLab. “We’re now hard at work to enable further customization of MAKIES, more creativity, and to expand to include digital and physical gaming.”

Together with the launch, MakieLab announce their seed round investment of $1.4 million. The round is led by early-stage investors Lifeline Ventures and Sunstone Capital and is joined by Anime and gaming industry veterans Matthew Wiggins, Daniel James and Cedric Littardi of superangel-fund Ynnis Ventures.

“The toys industry is ripe for disruption and 3D printing opens up for a powerful blend of digital and physical. We’re thrilled to support Alice, Jo, Sulka, Luke and team in London and Helsinki in their venture to define a new toys company,” says Petteri Koponen, Partner at Lifeline Ventures.

“MAKIES are great proof of how 3D printing will impact our everyday life in so many subtle ways. My daughter is already saving her pocket money for a MAKIE and for her and her peers this physical customization will be the norm,” adds Nikolaj Nyholm, Partner at Sunstone Capital.

MakieLab joins the ranks of culturally influential companies in the portfolio of Lifeline Ventures and Sunstone Capital – including Tinkercad, Supercell, Prezi, Gidsy, Layar and Applifier.

It gives us the needed funds to build out MAKIES, to head for kids with a kid-specific product, and to figure out more interesting things to do with games & toys connected.

Many thanks to our excellent investors - and they are truly excellent: clever, interested tech people one and all - and to all our supporters to date, you’ve been invaluable.