BOOKR Kids, a reading-based early learning edutainment company, has raised €2 million in a fresh funding round led by Bonitas, a private VC owned by Hungarian billionaire Sándor Csányi.
The company has also received a further €2 million in convertible note, according to a report.
Founded in 2015, BOOKR Kids is a leading digital publisher and edtech company of the CEE region, offering a unique reading-based edutainment tool designed to engage and delight the youngest learners in reading. The company caters to 3-11-year-old children to help improve their literacy skills, reading comprehension and English as a second language through interactive animated story books with educational games.
BOOKR Kids’ animated interactive e-books and apps follow a researched methodology to facilitate language acquisition. The texts and activities are designed to support individual and classroom use as well. The illustrations and animations support the understanding of the texts, with features interesting enough to keep attention and not to distract users from reading. BOOKR Kids’ entertaining educational games help to highlight the main linguistic elements and features for a more focused, intentional learning and practice.
Speaking about the company and the future of learning, Dorka Horvath, Founder and CEO, BOOKR Kids, said,
“Presential and online education will continue merging, and a hybrid model will be the new norm of the future. Our mission is providing high quality educational content which supports literacy in a way that is accessible for children so they can have more quality screen time.”
BOOKR Kids believes that reading makes a better future possible for every kid. Besides literacy, its format can help address 21st-century skills as well such as creativity, communication, collaboration and critical thinking.
The company plans to use the new funds to take their English learning literacy program BOOKR Class to the global education market, and boost further its goal of mitigating COVID-19’s impact on education. With the investment, the company also plans to develop more innovative content and a more comprehensive curriculum, including 21st-century skills.
This year has been a turning point for BOOKR Kids, as much as for any other edtech players in the world, as the importance and demand for digital educational materials has increased enormously due to the pandemic. Its BOOKR Class has been recognized during school closure as an official textbook in Hungary and is now used by 100,000 students across the country.
BOOKR Kids currently has educational partners in Turkey, Greece, Spain, South Korea, Singapore, Germany, and in the US. With the latest funding, the company is looking to expand to Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Latin America (LATAM) region.
