Peppy Pals - A fun EdTech platform teaching kids 2-8 SEL

Peppy Pals develops fun and educational, award-winning apps, books and movies that nurture children's Social & Emotional Intelligence (EQ) through story-telling and humor. It is the first company in the world that has gamified EQ for kids without using text or language, and has been downloaded in over 150 countries.

Today, 8/10 children have been victims of bullying and/or cyber-bullying. A study from University of Michigan shows that we've become 40% less emphatic over the last 30 years. 

EQ is one of the most important factors in fostering successful leaders and businesses. Research also shows that early childhood is a critical period for teaching social and emotional learning (SEL). 

In a report from 2016, the World Economic Forum stated that EQ is among the top 10 most required skills in 2020. Still, practicing SEL is often put outside everyone’s responsibility and far from every child grows up practicing these skills.

Research suggests that higher EQ:

- Reduces the chance of being bullied/bullying others
- Increases academic results
- Develops healthier relationships
- Improves self-esteem
- Fosters successful leaders

In 2 years, we've reached +400.000 families worldwide. According to a survey in 2015, 90% of parents noticed an improvement in their child's emotional awareness after using our apps. Peppy Pals has also been very helpful for kids with special needs. Example: http://bit.ly/2bDhOwI

In a smaller research, Professor Annika Waern concluded that after using Peppy Pals, children talk vividly about emotions, empathy and friendship and applied the digital learning in everyday situations. 

Our spark of inspiration is the idea that playfulness, humor and storytelling can help children develop their social and emotional intelligence. Our goal is to be the nr. 1 EQ-solutions for kids ages 2-8, both in homes and schools. 

The different scenarios in our apps showcase learning situations dealing with for instance: differences and similarities between people, encouraging or helping friends in need, and handling emotions like selfishness, guilt, anger, or those resulting from mistakes. 

We use different input interfaces, both digital and analog, to enhance the learning experience and remove certain barriers. 

Track downloads in the app store - 500,000 people worldwide download our app

Track parent feature usage in our apps - Parents/Teachers spend 30 minutes a week engaging in EQ-conversations

Break-Even - Be financially sustainable by the end of 2018

Learning apps within math, reading, language etc. are becoming a huge success in homes and schools, but there are no successful apps focusing on SEL for kids. 

Unlike many other educational games, we don't use levelling or score stress. The reward is instead a hug, a happy friend and a smile. 

No one has previously succeeded in gamifying EQ without using text or language. It's an art to create fun games that at the same time can be used for educational purposes and where children voluntarily choose to play the games.

Our games can be played by all kids, regardless of language, gender, culture, religion and/or special needs, and we always involve the kids in the development. 

In 2015, Professor in Human-Computer interaction, Annika Waern concluded that the kids mimc the characters in the game and apply learnings in everyday situations. They took the online learning to an offline environment. 

The teachers further explained that the material has created conversation between them and the children and also helped the children to resolve conflicts independently.

The apps are available across all mobile devices. In contrast to a lot of costly SEL-programs exclusive to schools, Peppy Pals can be used both in home and school at a low cost (between $2-5 each). In fall 2017, we'll launch a web-based service for schools paying an annual licensing fee. 

Most of our growth has been organic and from partnerships with big corporations. For instance, in 2016 one of Sweden’s biggest fast food chains bought Peppy Pals apps, books and licensed our characters for a period of 7 months, resulting in over 1 million products being distributed.

Our future plan is to unite our apps, books and content in one web-based platform and offer a subscription-based service, instead of apps as it has not been a financially sustainable business for us. In 2017, Peppy Pals received a grant from Vinnova, the Swedish governmental agency for innovation, to develop the basis of this platform and our goal is to launch the service fall 2017.  

It´s very difficult and time-consuming to create innovative games and we’ve worked with very limited economic resources from the start, but our passion and mission has helped us stay together. However, financial resources to invest in product development and growth are needed to reach our fullest potential. 

Lately we’ve been in dialogues with investors, foundations and philanthropists, mostly in Sweden, in order to secure a seed funding to be able to scale. Our goal is to raise 3-5 MSEK within the next 3-6 months. 

Several barriers stand in the way of achieving the full benefits of SEL such as limited awareness and insufficient prioritization. While we've involved researchers, psychologists and children in our game-development to ensure high-quality products we need to join forces with international companies, policy makers and tap into large networks to raise awareness of the importance of EQ.

http://twitter.com/peppypals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2jzB9xW5m8&t=49s

To see the full benefits of EQ, we have to join forces with even more great players. 

This fall we'll launch a new business model and product, and we see a huge benefit in learning from both experienced mentors as well as other companies within your network.

On a longer term, we hope to find new international B2B- partners and engage with philantropists on an international level to be able to scale further and increase our social footprint. 

We’ve been working closely with 6Seconds (one of the largest EQ-networks in the U.S, based in Menlo Park) as well as Yale Center of Emotional Intelligence. In April, we also explored potential collaboration opportunities with Ashoka and their Changemaking initiatives. We're also a Change Leader at Reach for Change.

Mainly other kids app developers such as Toca Boca, ABC Mouse etc.