Bulbul Apps raises funds from crowd-funding site Kickstarter

Startup, which makes apps for pre-schoolers, will use the funds to pay writers, illustrators, animators, voice artists, and musicians

Bulbul Apps, a Hyderabad-based startup that develops apps for pre-schoolers, has raised funds from crowd-funding site Kickstarter to promote its 'Tuk Tuk goes to Hyderabad' travel app for kids.

The Kickstarter project, which set a funding goal of $2000, reached the target in just 25 days. The funds raised from Kickstarter will be used to pay writers, illustrators, animators, voice-over artists, musicians and towards app development, testing and listing, Bulbul Apps founder Prakash Dantuluri said in a statement on Monday.

Bulbul Apps, which launched Tuk Tuk goes to Mumbai a month ago and now Tuk Tuk goes to Hyderabad, currently has 12 storytellers, animators, illustrators from over 30 countries and 55 books in English, Hindi and Telugu live in its Bulbul Apps library. It has stories in eight categories — folk tales, princess stories, Indian mythology, Mowgli and Bulbul, Krishna series, Tuk Tuk travel series and English rhymes.

Tuk Tuk travel app for kids is a smartphone and tablet app that helps a preschooler discover his or her city in a Tuk tuk (3-wheeler automobile),  in a visually and interactive manner that is highly engaging and user designed story telling methodology to hold children’s mind from start to finish.

"We are building a library that is engrossing and child worthy. We have a collection of over 50 apps in our library and this new genre is adding immense thrust to Bulbul Apps' rising popularity," Prakash said.

The company, which had earlier raised $250,000 in an angel round of funding, said Tuk Tuk would soon travel to New York, London, Dubai, Hong Kong and Tokyo cities in the next six months.