About Papiro

Making paper interactive for everyone, everywhere

Our Vision

We believe in a world where any printed material can become interactive, educational, and engaging. Papiro is building the platform that empowers creators, educators, and businesses to transform static paper into dynamic experiences through our innovative pen technology and AI-powered content creation tools.

From personalized education that adapts to each student's needs, to interactive board games that explain themselves, to sheet music that plays as you read – we're not just digitizing paper, we're enhancing it while preserving what makes physical media special.

It Started in a Trampoline Hall

Two years ago, I was at a trampoline hall with my 5-year-old daughter. In a moment of trying to explain something to her, we accidentally jumped on the same pad. She broke her leg.

Home-bound with a plastered leg that needed to stay elevated, she received a gift from a teacher friend: a collection of TipToi interactive books. As I watched her explore these books with the magical pen that made them speak and sing, a thought struck me: "What if I could create my own content? I could make stories about fairies, the history of dragons, anything she loves..."

"I figured those books would never entertain her for 2 weeks straight, so I thought, wouldn't it be great if it was possible to create my own material?"

Down the Rabbit Hole

That simple wish sent me on an unexpected journey. I made a video explaining the TipToi concept to two friends, raving about the potential if there was a way to make books for the platform. Soon, I was diving deep into electrical engineering, infrared sensors, optics, dot patterns, and patent research – territories completely new to me.

What fascinated me most was how the infrared sensor filters out the colored picture to reveal hidden dot patterns, and how the pen retains state to enable scenarios and puzzles. But after seeing the reverse-engineered formats TipToi used, I felt empathy for the Ravensburger team – creating a TipToi book was terribly complicated.

From Hacking to Building

I spent months trying to build my own optical sensor, wrestling with frequency filters, IR bands, and lens distances. It wasn't easy at all. I managed to get something that could see dot patterns, but the closed SDK and obtuse binary formats of TipToi made me realize: hacking the existing system would never reach its full potential. I needed to build something new.

The Technical Foundation: As someone who'd been coding since 15, studied Information Sciences in Utrecht, and worked on collaborative editors like Parture.org and integrations for Fonto XML editor, I had the software background. The hardware was the new frontier.
The Perfect Storm: When my colleague Robert Mariuson was let go from Ebcont, I saw the opportunity. Robert – an Icelandic polymath with a psychology degree who'd overcome learning difficulties as a child – initially thought I was too concerned with "just a toy." But then it clicked for him: this was about disrupting the paper medium itself.
The Vision Expands: Robert immediately foresaw all the use cases and committed fully. We incorporated in Estonia (where you can start a company in a day!), rebranded from "Playtip" to "Papiro," and began building not just a product, but a platform.

More Than Interactive Books

What started as a wish to create custom books for my daughter has evolved into something much bigger. As a board game maker (Money Maker Games), I know how even with graphics and manuals, games can be difficult to comprehend. As a musician working with sheet music in studios, I've experienced the struggle of trying to re-hear crucial parts.

But the real game-changer is education. Everyone talks about "individualized learning," but it's mostly a hoax – you'd need three teachers in every classroom to truly achieve it. Imagine if teachers could create different books with exercises for each individual student, tracking their progress through a dashboard. That's the world Papiro is building.

"What I considered a 'simple' project is not straightforward at all..."

Today, we're finalizing our prototype platform with a "pen emulator" – and fittingly, our demo book tells the story of two entrepreneurs building a business. It's meta, but it perfectly demonstrates how authors can use consistent characters and interactive elements to bring any story to life.

Join Our Journey

From that trampoline hall accident to reimagining how billions interact with printed materials – board games, sheet music, educational content, restaurant menus, tourist guides – Papiro is on a mission to make paper truly interactive and accessible to everyone.

We're currently preparing to open our first funding round. If you believe in a world where any printed material can become interactive, where teachers can truly personalize learning, and where creativity has no bounds – we'd love to hear from you.

Get in Touch