Big Bang Academy, a Hong Kong-based STEAM education technology startup, has announced the completion of its seed funding round led by Gobi Partners, with participation from family offices and angel investors from technology and private equity backgrounds.
The company plans to utilize the funds in advancing its product development, including AI-enabled personalized learning technology, enrichment of the educational content library, and research and development for home experiment kits.
Founded by two young University of Cambridge alumni, Nixon Chan and Sarah Tong, Big Bang Academy brings science to life with their award-winning STEAM e-learning app, online live classes, and theme-park-like learning experiences. It empowers every child to be self-directed learners through hands-on experiments anytime, anywhere. The company’s award-winning curriculum covers the natural sciences and engineering, with the aim to equip future leaders with the scientific skills and knowledge to solve the most pressing issues humanity face globally like climate change, global pandemic, and energy shortage, etc.
Big Bang Academy’s mission is to promote and inspire self-driven learning through everything hands-on. The platform redefines science in early childhood education. The startup believes doing science is the best medium to ignite children’s passion in learning, to enable them to become motivated and life-long learners.
Talking about the platform, Sarah Tong, Co-founder of Big Bang Academy, said,
“When I was 6 years old, I learned to fix fuse problems in the electrical circuit of the TV at home. It was these positive and joyful childhood memories that inspire us to develop a life-long passion in learning. We want to recreate these “lightbulb moments” for children to become more curious, persistent learners.”
With Big Bang Academy, children get to build something real with their own hands where genuine interest is sparked. The company’s platform offers gamification, challenges, experiment, customized material progress tracking, and storytelling, enabling students to learn a wide array of STEAM topics anytime, anywhere, with safe and reliable content.
Chibo Tang, Managing Partner of Gobi Partners, said,
“We’re excited to be working with Big Bang Academy as their innovative approach leads to a new age of hybrid learning for kids and provides a necessary platform for them since the pandemic changed the way children are learning.”
Big Bang Academy’s classes and content have reached over 4,000 students aged 3-12 years old in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan shortly after one year of inception. The company claims to have recorded a 300% year-on-year growth in revenue and is trusted by top schools and corporates such as Malvern College Hong Kong, K11 Musea, Consulate General of France in Hong Kong, and Jockey Club Hong Kong.
According to Co-founder Nixon Chan, the company has experienced a surge in demand from parents in Asia, especially during the pandemic season.
In the future, Big Bang Academy plans to partner with top international education institutes and experts to create accredited content to further strengthen the overall learning quality and effectiveness.