Edtech company Pok Pok raises $3M to expand its digital play experiences for kids – Nob6

Pok Pok, a Toronto-based edtech firm, has introduced that it raised $3 million in seed funding to develop its play-based studying experiences for youths. The corporate was based in 2019 after it spun out of Snowman, the small studio behind award-winning iOS video games Alto’s Journey, Alto’s Odyssey, Skate Metropolis and others.

The thought for Pok Pok surfaced after Snowman staff, Mathijs Demaeght and Esther Huybreghts, now vice-president of design and chief artistic officer at Pok Pok, respectively, went searching for an app to entertain their younger son when he was a toddler. The pair have been unable to seek out an possibility that match what they have been searching for and determined to construct the app they wished for themselves.

Pok Pok CEO and co-founder Melissa Money, the sister of Snowman co-founder and artistic director Ryan Money and whose background was in creating merchandise at Disney for infants and toddlers, joined the group when she noticed what Demaeght and Huybreghts have been engaged on.

In the present day, Pok Pok is formally separated from Snowman and its group consists of ten full-time staff after current hiring. The startup launched its Pok Playroom app, which is the primary title to go dwell from Pok Pok, in Might 2021. The app encourages children to be taught by unbiased play and launched with six “digital toys” that develop with the kid as they age up. The corporate says that all the toys are designed to be open-ended, as there’s no proper or flawed approach to make use of them. Huybreghts and Money emphasised that Pok Pok Playroom just isn’t a recreation, as there aren’t any ranges to beat or aims to attain.

As for the brand new funding, Pok Pok will use a part of it to proceed enhancing and increasing the Pok Pok Playroom app, as the corporate plans to launch three new digital toys within the subsequent few months.

“The funding goes to enter a few totally different areas of the enterprise, “ Money mentioned in an interview. “Primary goes to be advertising and marketing. We launched Pok Pok final Might and didn’t actually do any advertising and marketing, so we need to put money into sharing Pok Pok with extra households. We’ve seen natural development during the last yr and we’d love to start out injecting just a little bit extra capital into that. And the remainder of the funding will go towards additional growth. We keep Pok Pok Playroom with common updates, and so a part of the funding will go towards persevering with to take care of the app. We’re additionally going to additional our attain with future merchandise as nicely. We really feel like we are able to make a dent within the universe with digital play, so we’re actually enthusiastic about creating future merchandise for older children.”

Pok Pok’s seed spherical was led by Konvoy with participation from Preliminary Capital and angel traders. Current traders embody Tiny, in addition to angel traders Jon Levy, the co-founder of Mastermind Toys and Dax Dasilva, the founder and government chair of Montreal-based tech firm Lightspeed, amongst others. The startup’s seed funding follows its $925,000 pre-seed in February 2021.

Huybreghts famous that the corporate is concentrated on making its digital play experiences primarily based in actuality and making Pok Pok a various area. As a part of an replace launched a this month, the Pok Pok Playroom app celebrated Delight.

“We launched our Delight replace in varied locations all through the app as a result of we really feel that youngsters want each home windows and mirrors in the way in which they see the world,” Huybreghts mentioned. “They want the home windows to empathize with the world and to see totally different views from those they’re used to. They usually want mirrors to acknowledge themselves and their family and friends, whether or not that’s by LGBTQI+ inclusion or in different methods.”

By way of the longer term, Huybreghts outlined that youngsters are going to be rising up in a society that’s vastly totally different from those that their dad and mom grew up in, which is why it’s necessary for them to be artistic and be capable of assume exterior of the field. She famous that Pok Pok’s merchandise will goal to assist kids be capable of collaborate and cooperate with others.

“We need to make high quality merchandise that can permit dad and mom to maneuver by childhood with their children with Pok Pok as a strong supporter of their child’s creativity and schooling,” Huybreghts mentioned.