Pok PokA children’s app maker focused on creating play-based learning experiences for preschoolers, has made a name for itself in the iOS developer community after winning both awards. App Store Award for Cultural Impact and a Apple Design Award. But now the company is ready to expand its reach by bringing its app and new STEM-based activities to families with iOS and Android devices, thanks to its latest funding.
The app, Pok Pok Playroom, today offers 17 play experiences that are more like “digital toys” than games, allowing children to explore with creative play. There are “toys” that respond to touch, drawing tools, those for interacting with shapes, dress up toys, dinosaur toys and much more.
Originally incubated within Snowman, the studio behind award-winning iOS games like Alto’s Adventure, Alto’s Odyssey, Skate City and othersThe idea for Pok Pok came from the company’s tinkering culture.
Snowman Employees Mathijs Demaeght and Esther Huybreghts, now vice president of design and creative director of Pok Pok, respectively, were looking for an app to entertain their son James when he was little. However, the co-founders didn’t find many options they liked. They wanted something fun, but not too technical or gamified. After creating a prototype of a product, they showed it to Snowman co-founder and creative director Ryan Cash, who saw the potential. ryan’s sister, Melissa Cashwhose background was developing baby and toddler products at Disney, joined the team and is now CEO of Pok Pok.
In the years since its debut in May 2021, Pok Pok has added new learning experiences to its app, raised a $3 million seed round, and reached six figures in terms of monthly recurring revenue. Over the past year, business has grown 5x and the subscriber base has grown 9x, although the startup is not yet ready to share hard numbers. The app itself has over a million downloads.
The startup’s growth caught the attention of investors, leading to a $6 million Series A. The round was led by Adjacent’s Nico Wittenborn, who has also backed other subscription companies such as Oura, Calm, Clue and Blinkist. Also participating in the round were Konvoy Ventures, Metalab Ventures, Banana Capital and other angel investors, including Instacart’s Brandon Leonardo.
While pleased to have raised an oversubscribed round, the team realized they had no women on their funding table, which worried them given that the female-led company makes products for families.
“That just didn’t sit well with me,” said executive director Melissa Cash. “So we decided to make some changes to the assignment. We set aside some money from the round. We did a first close because we didn’t want to delay everything, 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 to participate in Series A and beyond.”
The team found that many of the female-led VCs tended to be pre-seed or seed or those who were involved in funding but weren’t making decisions or writing checks.
“That nuance was quite important to us. And then we would find a lot of wonderful angel investors, but frankly, 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 eye-opening experience,” he said. “We think that if there is any company that can get female support, it is Pok Pok.”
The second round close took longer than the first due to these challenges and includes investors like Peanut’s Michelle Kennedy.
Another of the new investors ended up being Pok Pok’s fractional CFO, Julie McGill, who is also an LP at several larger venture funds. Like the Pok Pok team, she was frustrated by the problems the company was having finding women to add to the salary cap table. McGill ended up starting an entirely new fund, Julie Change Fund, just to invest in Pok Pok. The fund will now focus on attracting wealthy individual women investing at the Series A stage and beyond.
“Pok Pok is the catalyst for starting a fund I’ve been thinking about for years; “This fund is my commitment to breaking down the barriers women face in accessing, driving and accumulating capital,” McGill said in a statement. “We are thrilled to partner with Pok Pok, a company that excels at driving capital-efficient growth, led by two incredible women.”
With the additional funding, Pok Pok will expand its offering to include more STEM-based activities, responding to parents’ requests for more traditional learning experiences on the app alongside more fun ones. The new activities will continue to be aimed at preschool audiences, although Pok Pok is aware that even younger and older users continue to use its app and its designs accordingly.
The company will also be able to meet demand for Android later this fall. Many families have Android tablets for their children because of the more affordable prices, Cash said.
“We want to make sure Pok Pok is accessible to everyone. And we’ve had this waiting list It’s been growing for quite some time, so we have thousands of users…just waiting for it,” he said.
