As any parent can relate, we ALL want the best for our kids when it comes to their education. Whether it’s the countless hours spent helping their children with homework or the time they spend getting their kids to school on time, every parent tries to go the extra mile to make sure their child gets a great education.
The motivation for many parents is wanting to see their children succeed in life, have opportunities that they themselves may not have had, and in many instances the pride of authorship for creating an academically successful child. This unbridled passion that parents display towards making their children academically successful, is a driving force behind EdTech’s growth and our recent investment in Bamboo Leaning, one of the leaders in a new class of voice-powered educational applications available on Amazon Alexa and Fire TV.
Led by former Amazon Echo/Alexa, and Kindle business leader, Ian Freed, and education program and content development expert Irina Fine, the team at Bamboo Learning is delivering compelling educational content accessible via the rapidly expanding voice ecosystem. Their growing roster of educational applications (5 and counting) are leading the way forward in helping today’s parents provide their eager technology consuming children with tools to help them excel educationally.
The importance of Bamboo’s mission has many similarities to the story of Fred Rogers (aka Mr. Rogers). A recent documentary film, Won’t You Be My Neighbor, highlights how Mr. Rogers saw early on the potential of an exciting new technology that was rapidly transforming American households – the television. In sensing this tidal shift, Mr. Rogers recognized early on the need to create quality educational content to feed children’s minds. This same need exists when it comes to new voice-enabled technology that is rapidly proliferating in households around the globe. Having access to both ENGAGING and EDUCATIONAL content like Bamboo Learning’s applications provide will be critically important to the care and feeding of our future youth.
We are excited to participate in Bamboo Learning’s $1.4M seed round, along with co-investors at the Amazon Alexa Fund, Wavemaker Partners, & Unlock Venture Partners.
Photo credits, in order: Element5 Digital, Bamboo Learning
