room rooma kid’s app developer focused on creating educational experiences for preschool children through play, has made a name for itself in the iOS developer community after winning each awards App Store Award for Cultural Impact and Apple Design Award. But now the company is ready to expand its reach by making its app and latest STEM-based activities available to families with each iOS and Android devices, thanks to the latest funding.
The Pok Pok Playroom app currently offers 17 activities that are more like “digital toys” than games, as they allow children to discover the world through creative play. There are touch-sensitive “toys”, drawing tools, etc interacting with shapes, dress-up toys, dinosaur toys and a lot more.
Originally incubated at Snowman, the studio behind award-winning iOS games comparable to Alto’s Adventure, Alto’s Odyssey, Skate City and othersthe idea for Pok Pok was born out of the company’s DIY culture.
Snowman’s employees Mathijs Demaeght AND Esther Huybreghts, now Pok Pok’s vice chairman of design and creative director, respectively, were looking for an app to entertain their son James when he was a toddler. However, the co-founders didn’t find many options they liked. They wanted something fun, but not too technical and not gamified. After creating a product prototype, they showed it to Snowman co-founder and creative director Ryan Cash, who saw the potential. Ryan’s sister Melissa Cashwhose background was in developing baby and toddler products at Disney, joined the team and is now CEO of the Pok Pok spinout.
In the years since its May 2021 debut, Pok Pok has added latest educational opportunities to its app, raised a $3 million seed round and reached six figures in monthly recurring revenue. Over the past yr, the company has grown fivefold and its subscriber base has grown ninefold, though the startup is not ready to share hard numbers yet. The app itself has over a million downloads.
The startup’s growth attracted the attention of investors, leading to a $6 million Series A round. The round was led by Adjacent’s Nico Wittenborn, who also backed other subscription firms comparable to Oura, Calm, Clue, and Blinkist. Konvoy Ventures, Metalab Ventures, Banana Capital and other angel investors, including Instacart’s Brandon Leonardo, also participated in the round.
While they were pleased to raise an oversubscribed round, the team realized they didn’t have any women on the table, which concerned them considering the woman-led company creates products for families.
“It just didn’t fit,” said CEO Melissa Cash. “Therefore, we decided to make some changes to the allocation. We set aside some cash from the round. We did the first close because we didn’t want to hold everything up, but we cashed out and did a second close, which actually took us longer to raise than the first close because it was very difficult to find female investors who participated in the Series A and beyond.”
The team found that many women-led VCs tend to be pre-seed, seed or enterprise capital firms, but not decision makers or check writers.
“This nuance was quite important to us. And then we found a lot of great angel investors, but honestly, they didn’t have the capital or the wealth to be able to invest in a Series A because obviously there’s a minimum check size. So it was a really learning experience,” she said. “We thought if there was any company that could get women’s support, it was Pok Pok.”
Due to these challenges, they took longer to close their second round than their first and included investors like Peanut’s Michelle Kennedy.
Another of the latest investors was Pok Pok’s fractional CFO, Julie McGill, who is also a board member of several larger enterprise capital funds. Like the Pok Poka team, she was frustrated by the company’s difficulty finding women to add to the cap table. McGill has launched a brand latest fund, the Julie Change Fund, to invest in Pok Pok. The fund will now focus on attracting high-net-worth women investors at the Series A stage and beyond.
“Pok Pok is the catalyst for starting a fund that I have been thinking about for years; This fund is my commitment to breaking down the barriers women face in accessing, raising and raising capital,” McGill said in a statement. “We are excited to partner with Pok Pok, a company that specializes in driving capital-efficient growth, led by two incredible women.”
With the additional funding, Pok Pok intends to expand its offerings to include more STEM-based activities, in response to parents’ requests for more traditional learning experiences on the app, alongside more fun ones. The latest classes will still be aimed at preschoolers, although Pok Pok recognizes that even younger and older users proceed to use its apps and designs appropriately.
The company will have the opportunity to meet demand for Android this fall. Cash says many families have Android tablets for their children because they are cheaper.
“We want to make sure Pok Pok is accessible to everyone. And we had it waiting list it has been growing for a long time, so we have thousands of users… we are just waiting for it,” she said.