Pok Pok, a youngsters app maker centered on constructing play-based studying experiences for the preschool set, has made a reputation for itself within the iOS developer neighborhood after profitable each an App Retailer award for cultural influence and an Apple Design Award. However now the corporate is able to increase its attain by bringing its app and new STEM-based actions to households with each iOS and Android units, because of its newest funding.
The app, Pok Pok Playroom, at this time affords seventeen totally different play experiences which might be extra akin to “digital toys” than video games, as they permit youngsters to discover with inventive play. There are “toys” that reply to touches, drawing instruments, these for interacting with shapes, dress-up toys, dinosaur toys, and way more.
Initially incubated inside Snowman, the studio behind award-winning iOS video games like Alto’s Journey, Alto’s Odyssey, Skate Metropolis, and others, the concept for Pok Pok emerged from the corporate’s tradition of tinkering.
Snowman staff Mathijs Demaeght and Esther Huybreghts, now Pok Pok VP of Design and Chief Inventive Officer, respectively, have been in search of an app to entertain their younger son James when he was a toddler. Nonetheless, the co-founders didn’t discover many choices they appreciated. They needed one thing playful, however not too technical and never gamified. After prototyping a product, they confirmed it to Snowman co-founder and artistic director Ryan Money, who noticed the potential. Ryan’s sister, Melissa Money, whose background was in creating merchandise at Disney for infants and toddlers, joined the crew and is now CEO of the Pok Pok spinout.
Within the years since its Could 2021 debut, Pok Pok has added new studying experiences to its app, raised a $3 million seed spherical, and reached six figures by way of month-to-month recurring income. Over the previous 12 months, the enterprise has grown by 5x and the subscriber base by 9x, although the startup isn’t but able to share exhausting numbers. The app itself has over one million downloads.
The startup’s development caught buyers’ consideration, resulting in a $6 million Sequence A. The spherical was led by Adjoining’s Nico Wittenborn, who has additionally backed different subscription companies like Oura, Calm, Clue, and Blinkist. Additionally collaborating within the spherical have been Konvoy Ventures, MetaLab Ventures, Banana Capital, and different angel buyers, together with Instacart’s Brandon Leonardo.
Although happy to have raised an oversubscribed spherical, the crew realized they didn’t have any girls on their cap desk, which made them uneasy, provided that the women-led firm builds merchandise for households.
“That just didn’t sit right,” explains CEO Melissa Money. “So we decided to make some allocation changes. We set aside some cash from the round. We did a first close because we didn’t want to hold up everything, but we took cash out and did a second close, which actually took us longer to raise than the first close because it was very tough to find female investors who participate at series A and beyond.”
The crew discovered that lots of the women-led VCs tended to be pre-seed or seed or those that have been concerned in funds, however weren’t the decision-makers and verify writers.
“That nuance was pretty important to us. And then we would find a lot of wonderful angel investors, but they didn’t have the capital or the wealth, frankly, to be able to invest in a Series A because, obviously, there’s a minimum check size. So it was a really eye-opening experience,” says Money. “We thought if there’s any company that can get female backing, it’s Pok Pok.”
The second shut of the spherical took them longer than the primary as a consequence of these challenges and consists of buyers like Michelle Kennedy from Peanut.
One other one of many new buyers ended up being Pok Pok’s fractional CFO, Julie McGill, who’s additionally an LP in a number of greater enterprise funds. Like Pok Pok’s crew, she was annoyed by the difficulty the corporate was having to seek out girls so as to add to the cap desk. McGill ended up beginning a model new fund, Julie Change Fund, simply to put money into Pok Pok. The fund will now concentrate on bringing in rich particular person girls investing on the Sequence A stage and past.
“Pok Pok is the catalyst for starting a fund I have been thinking about for years—this fund is my commitment to breaking barriers women face in accessing, driving, and accumulating capital,” McGill mentioned, in an announcement. “We are thrilled to partner with Pok Pok, a company that excels at driving capital efficient growth, led by two amazing women.”
With the extra funds, Pok Pok goes to increase its choices to incorporate extra STEM-based actions, in response to oldsters’ requests for extra conventional studying experiences within the app alongside the extra playful ones. The brand new actions will nonetheless be focused to the preschool crowd, although Pok Pok is conscious that even youthful and older customers proceed to make use of its app and designs accordingly.
The corporate can even be capable to deal with demand for Android later this fall. Notes Money, many households have Android tablets for his or her youngsters due to the extra accessible value factors.
“We want to make sure Pok Pok can be accessible to everybody. And we’ve had this waitlist growing for quite some time, so we have thousands of users…just waiting for it,” she says.
