SBI Investment Puts $8 Million into Swiss AI Toy Startup SCEPTICS
SBI Investment, the venture capital arm of Japan’s SBI Group, has invested US$8 million in SCEPTICS, a Zurich-based startup building an AI learning companion for young children. The company will use the funding to expand its AI and hardware engineering teams in Switzerland, complete safety and privacy certifications, and roll out its product, Sparkie, across Europe and North America.
Sparkie is a palm-sized, disc-shaped device for children aged three to eight. A magnetic ring on the back lets it stick to fridges, hang from backpacks and attach to everyday surfaces, which the company describes as turning a child’s surroundings into an interactive learning environment. The design details are deliberate: a round body so the device feels like a friend rather than a machine, a 78-millimetre diameter sized for a child’s hands, a 98-gram weight light enough not to drag down a schoolbag, and a food-grade silicone outer ring that does not feel cold to the touch.
The product philosophy is written into the company’s name. SCEPTICS — the team argues that a good question matters more than a standard answer — built Sparkie to keep children asking and to help them find the answers. Powered by conversational AI, it answers questions, tells stories and guides hands-on activities; there is no typing or swiping, only a spoken wake word or a tap on the round screen. Every conversation passes through a safety filter, and when the companion is unsure it says it does not know and encourages the child to look for the answer together with an adult. The screen plays no video and carries no feed, showing only the companion’s expressions, and children can pick from four AI characters.
The line comes in two models. Sparkie Go is the portable unit, priced at RMB 899 (about US$126); Sparkie Home is a larger 620-gram device that acts as a home casting hub and charging dock for RMB 1,499 (about US$211). At home, the companion can run interactive lessons on a television while children answer from the round screen, or read picture books aloud on the big screen, pausing to ask questions. Memory and learning progress sync automatically between the two devices. A parent app shows daily summaries and weekly growth reports, along with “question relay cards” that prompt parents to continue a question their child explored with Sparkie during the day.
Peter Meier, a spokesperson for SCEPTICS, framed the category against screen time: children learn best, he said, through conversation and play rather than through more displays. The company says its privacy design meets Swiss and European data-protection standards, a selling point it is clearly betting on as parents weigh connected toys.
Sparkie currently supports Chinese, English, French, German, Arabic and Japanese, and is scheduled for release in spring 2027 with a first wave covering more than 30 countries and regions. SCEPTICS says it is in talks with online shopping platforms, membership warehouse stores, mother-and-baby retail chains and toy retailers, and plans a pop-up store in Hong Kong and a flagship experience store in Singapore.
The deal lands in a category drawing growing investor attention: screen-free or low-screen AI companions positioned as alternatives to tablets for young children. For SBI Investment it adds a European consumer-hardware bet to its AI portfolio; for the education market it is a further sign that early-years AI hardware has become an investable product category in its own right.
Sparkie is a palm-sized, disc-shaped device for children aged three to eight. A magnetic ring on the back lets it stick to fridges, hang from backpacks and attach to everyday surfaces, which the company describes as turning a child’s surroundings into an interactive learning environment. The design details are deliberate: a round body so the device feels like a friend rather than a machine, a 78-millimetre diameter sized for a child’s hands, a 98-gram weight light enough not to drag down a schoolbag, and a food-grade silicone outer ring that does not feel cold to the touch.
The product philosophy is written into the company’s name. SCEPTICS — the team argues that a good question matters more than a standard answer — built Sparkie to keep children asking and to help them find the answers. Powered by conversational AI, it answers questions, tells stories and guides hands-on activities; there is no typing or swiping, only a spoken wake word or a tap on the round screen. Every conversation passes through a safety filter, and when the companion is unsure it says it does not know and encourages the child to look for the answer together with an adult. The screen plays no video and carries no feed, showing only the companion’s expressions, and children can pick from four AI characters.
The line comes in two models. Sparkie Go is the portable unit, priced at RMB 899 (about US$126); Sparkie Home is a larger 620-gram device that acts as a home casting hub and charging dock for RMB 1,499 (about US$211). At home, the companion can run interactive lessons on a television while children answer from the round screen, or read picture books aloud on the big screen, pausing to ask questions. Memory and learning progress sync automatically between the two devices. A parent app shows daily summaries and weekly growth reports, along with “question relay cards” that prompt parents to continue a question their child explored with Sparkie during the day.
Peter Meier, a spokesperson for SCEPTICS, framed the category against screen time: children learn best, he said, through conversation and play rather than through more displays. The company says its privacy design meets Swiss and European data-protection standards, a selling point it is clearly betting on as parents weigh connected toys.
Sparkie currently supports Chinese, English, French, German, Arabic and Japanese, and is scheduled for release in spring 2027 with a first wave covering more than 30 countries and regions. SCEPTICS says it is in talks with online shopping platforms, membership warehouse stores, mother-and-baby retail chains and toy retailers, and plans a pop-up store in Hong Kong and a flagship experience store in Singapore.
The deal lands in a category drawing growing investor attention: screen-free or low-screen AI companions positioned as alternatives to tablets for young children. For SBI Investment it adds a European consumer-hardware bet to its AI portfolio; for the education market it is a further sign that early-years AI hardware has become an investable product category in its own right.
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