It started in schools, today the founders want to reach parents directly with Tuktoro. The team behind CEO Elisha Benner (r.). In front of them: the smart dice figures. a2zebra
Feverish thinking, sliding around on the chair, secretly counting on your fingers – until you can’t do it anymore. Elisha Benner knows how children behave when they can’t do math. “I didn’t have that much motivation at school myself,” says the founder. Problems often only become apparent in the second grade, when counting is no longer just up to ten, but up to 20 and 100. Benner’s mother, who works as a learning psychologist, often deals with school children who suffer from dyscalculia. Between three and eight percent of all children and young people should according to studies to be affected. The psychologist resorted to dice as an effective remedy. The founder says: “A dice is playful; you can use it to imagine numbers much better than just on paper. I thought I’d just put them in a box.” The initial spark for his current invention, Tuktoro.
This is a bulbous figure who wears a purple sweater, has tiny ears and glows. Up to four cubes can be inserted inside. In combination with an app, children from four years old to second grade can play various learning games on the tablet. This includes, for example, correctly assigning dice images and calculating number walls. The aim is to train the learning of calculation strategies and an understanding of quantities.
Sensors in the figure transmit cube images to the tablet
Technically, the interaction between the figure and the app works via sensors that are built into Tuktoro’s floor. Using machine learning, these recognize the cube images after shaking and forward the result to the app via Bluetooth. If children have added up correctly, Tuktoro lights up green. If the sum is not correct, the stomach turns red.
“Direct feedback is important,” emphasizes Benner. “In the current education system, it is often the case that when children make a mistake, they receive a delay or no feedback at all. Or the parents stand behind it and say: Do it better.” The Berliner, who studied business mathematics himself and started an educational channel on YouTube with 15,000 followers as a teenager, doesn’t think that makes much sense. “We noticed that even when Tuktoro gives negative feedback, the children become incredibly motivated and learn much faster.”
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A calculating instrument that doesn’t look like one, but is more recognized by children as a toy. A desired effect. Some children would even cuddle with the cuddly figure. “It’s super important to me to bring back the fun in mathematics,” explains Benner. Children would develop an emotional connection with Tuktoro. The figure was designed by co-founder Justyna Zubrycka, who specializes in industrial design for children.
Co-founder used to build digital wooden toys
Zubrycka originally founded the startup Vai Kai in Berlin. There she sold self-designed digital wooden toy dolls that respond to touch and sound. The company was dissolved in 2019 – but Zubrycka didn’t want to give up starting a business. So she quit her job at a branding agency to join Benner’s idea. The founding team also includes Andreas Häring, whom Benner met in a co-working space for hardware products and who developed the sensor technology for Tuktoro, and designer Patrick Goehl. The four founded their startup called A2Zebra in August 2022 – on Benner’s birthday.
There is space for a total of four cubes in Tuktoro’s glowing belly. a2zebra
A lot has happened since then. They have now deviated from their original plan to bring Tuktoro into primary schools and thus win municipalities and countries as customers. The founders did go through some test phases in schools and learning centers. However, it became clear relatively quickly that making money this way would be difficult – and with it finding investors. “After nine months we only had a turnover of 500 euros,” says Benner. “These are very long, bureaucratic processes. Often the incentives to change something are too low.” The founders changed course – and have been addressing parents directly as customers ever since. This would have opened further doors, for example to influencers. The beauty entrepreneur Miriam Jacks won the startup as a business angel. She created the necessary buzz on Instagram.
After Pivot: Tuktoro first gains managers from Tonies, then founders as investors
In order to quickly bring their calculation cube into series production, the founders also brought in those who are pioneers in combining something tactile for children with something technical: Patric Faßbender and Marcus Stahl, inventors of the Tonieboxes. That means the music box makers actually followed suit. About a year ago, Benner and his team initially recruited Sebastian Heide-Meyer zu Erpen, Vice President of Technology at the Düsseldorf company, as an angel investor. He was followed by product boss Christian Sprinkmeyer and operations manager Kai Naujoks. Benner says: “He scaled Toniebox production from zero to 5.7 million.” With his help, it was now possible to produce 5,000 Tuktoro figures.
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Tonies founder Faßbender, with whom Benner had already spoken on the phone once at the beginning, took notice and wrote to him on Linkedin. He wanted to know whether it was still possible to invest with them. “It was of course a huge deal for us that Patrick and Markus wanted to be there,” says Benner. As part of its pre-seed financing, A2Zebra raised half a million euros as a convertible loan from business angels over the past six months.
Startup has sold 700 Tuktoros so far – with the prospect of 10,000 more
According to its own information, the startup has now pre-sold 700 figures and delivered the first 50 Tuktoros. Without spending a cent on marketing, as the CEO proudly emphasizes. “The product really works,” says Benner. The hardware is now completely finished, and the software will be further improved based on feedback from the first customers. In addition to setting up production, the Tonies managers also support the founders in getting into retail, for example in Thalia bookstores and family retailers such as BabyOne. According to Benner, the startup has already sold figures to smaller toy stores. Learning institutes that specifically target children with math difficulties also ordered a few hundred Tuktoros. “We now have letters of intent for over 10,000 sales,” says Benner. Her participation in the international toy fair and Didacta turned out to be a booster. Companies such as Mattel, Playmobil, Ravensburger and the Westermann publishing group approached them and expressed interest in investing. “We didn’t expect that,” said Benner.
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The four founders are currently in financing discussions. Their next round should bring them around three million euros. The Berlin startup will primarily need the money to further develop its product. The founders have so far developed 15 learning games together with a learning therapist. More are to come.
“Our goal is to completely cover elementary school with arithmetic content,” says Benner. It is still unclear whether the new content will be introduced as a subscription model in the app or as hardware – in the form of a new Tuktoro head that is clicked onto the body. Customers pay around 80 euros for the starter set, consisting of a figure, app and ten dice. According to Benner, the margin is tight. In general, parents would spend much more on math therapy lessons each month.
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The founders have recently been experimenting with artificial intelligence: For example, a chat GPT feature can be integrated into the app, which gives children tips on how they can improve. “But the prototype stage still applies,” emphasizes Benner. “You have to develop it for a long time until it is safe for children. One challenge, for example, is that the AI doesn’t say anything wrong – we have to filter that out.”
Dice method can be expanded for other subjects
In the vision of the founders, Tuktoro will not remain just a computing cube. There are already considerations about using the dice technique to learn music notes or programming codes. “It’s all still top secret,” says Benner. The startup’s dice already have a special feature. You can get by without the number six. The CEO said: “This has to do with the fact that children learn in stages. First up to ten, then the transition to ten.” The children start with two dice, then increase to three until the number is 15 and at the end they dice with four.
However, the founders prefer not to rely on dice when it comes to their investments. Here they let the bare numbers decide – and a good pitch deck.
You can find out in the article what arguments the founders now want to use to attract investors for their three million financing after the Tonies round. You can also find more exciting presentations on our pitch deck topic page.
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