PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Kidaptive, an innovative edtech company focused on early learning, today announced the close of a $10.1 million round of Series B financing led by Formation 8, along with significant participation by Menlo Ventures and the Stanford-StartX Fund. NewSchools Venture Fund and Prana Studios also continued their support of Kidaptive by contributing to the round. Kidaptive will use the funding to fuel the growth of its curriculum-based learning platform for the early education market. The team plans to develop a total of 25 animated appisodes for its award-winning Leo’s Pad: Preschool Kids Learning Series for iPad, and expand upon its data-rich learner profile, empowering parents to better understand and support their children’s interests and growth.
“Kids are increasingly spending more minutes on screen time each day, but parents don’t yet have a great readout on what they’re learning from these activities or even what’s capturing their imagination,” said P.J. Gunsagar, co-founder and CEO of Kidaptive. “We can do so much more with tablet time for our kids than use it as a digital babysitter. We’re excited about the value we can create for parents by helping them to become informed participants during a critical time in their children’s early education.”
Leo’s Pad, Kidaptive’s first product, is a series of interactive animated stories featuring gorgeous animations and creative storytelling. Embedded within the gameplay are assessments spanning seven learning categories related to cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development. As players interact with the games and characters in Leo’s Pad, the experience becomes more customized and the child’s learner profile grows, providing parents with clear guidance and useful tips about how to further support their child’s progress and interests.
With more than 500,000 downloads, Leo’s Pad is already a hit among the preschool set. Four Leo’s Pad appisodes are currently available for iPad, with the fifth expected to launch in the App Store in the coming weeks.
Kidaptive’s co-founders, chief executive officer, P.J. Gunsagar, and chief learning scientist, Dylan Arena, both Stanford alumni, have complementary sets of expertise that helped them create a differentiated edtech experience. Prior to Kidaptive, Gunsagar co-founded Prana Studios, a global 3-D animation and visual effects studio. Arena spent seven years at Stanford, researching game-based learning and next-generation assessment while earning a master’s degree in Statistics and a Ph.D. in Learning Sciences and Technology Design.
About Kidaptive
Kidaptive is an innovative digital learning company offering a comprehensive early-learning curriculum and assessment framework to engage children and empower parents. Through intelligent storytelling and research-based educational games developed in collaboration with scientists from Stanford, Kidaptive provides entertaining and adaptive content that helps preschool children and their parents learn. More details at kidaptive.com.
