British startup Lost My Name has sold more than 1m of its personalised picture books for children since launching its first title two years ago.

The company’s The Little Boy/Girl Who Lost His/Her Name book is ordered by parents from its website, with a story based on their own child’s name, as the main character searches for its letters.

Its sales success persuaded Google’s venture capital arm to lead a $9m funding round in the Hackney-based company in June 2015, with fellow Silicon Valley investors Greycroft and The Chernin Group also chipping in.

“We are a technology company that happens to make physical books,” co-founder Asi Sharabi told the FutureBook conference in London. “We are very proudly keeping the physical book alive.”

Lost My Name recently launched a second book, The Incredible Intergalactic Journey Home, with every copy culminating in a satellite photograph – drawn from Google Maps – of the postcode of home of the child it was bought for.

“As screens become more and more seductive to children, there is an increasing need to inject more magic into books: to find more ways to spark their imagination,” said co-founder Tal Oron.

The company says it has created books for 97,827 different names since its launch, with 64,027 of them only being used once. Oliver and Olivia are the most popular names according to its sales.

However, Lost My Name claims to have seen spikes in sales for children named after popular-culture figures too: such as a boost for sales of “Anna” and “Elsa” books nine months after the release of Disney’s film Frozen.

The startup was founded by “three fathers and an uncle” in 2012, who raised their first funding on the Dragon’s Den television show the following year.

In an interview with the Guardian earlier in the year, Sharabi said Lost My Name wants to focus on “quiet, old-fashioned bonding moment between the parent and the child as they read together, rather than the shouty bells and whistles of apps and screens”.

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