Polymath Raises $1.5M NZD Pre-seed, Co-led By Blackbird And GD1 To Make Maths More Fun Than Roblox

Polymath, the kid-focused startup redefining screen time, has announced a $1.5M NZD pre-seed funding round co-led by Blackbird Ventures and GD1. The investment will accelerate Polymath’s mission to give every child a high-quality learning experience they love while giving parents screen time they can feel good about.

Polymath is the learning game that kids actually want to play. Despite spending upwards of 4 hours a day on screens outside of school, kids only spend 6 minutes on average on educational apps. Instead, they spend time gaming, watching videos, and using social media.

Polymath combines their purpose-built adaptive learning algorithm and a sandbox gaming world to meet thousands of primary-aged kids where they’re at. Kids on Polymath play for half an hour on average. After investigating the data on students who play Polymath regularly and those who don’t, the team found that kids playing regularly learned as much as 2 times faster.

An Obsessed Team

Polymath’s founders, Sophie and Christian Silver are obsessed with fighting the drop in mathematics attainment that has been snowballing for the last 20 years. They founded the company after Sophie started inventing games to teach the children she worked with as a part-time job while attending university. With Sophie studying human learning and memory, and developmental psychology at UCL and Christian earning a degree in Computer Science at the University of Cambridge, the pair quickly decided to evolve Sophie’s games into a learning app.

“Polymath is kid-first. Our mission is to lift global education outcomes and we can’t do that without enthusiasm from children. This isn’t a case of ‘do your homework and you can play Adopt Me on Roblox after’. We’re rebranding learning as exciting and developing a learning algorithm to simultaneously deliver results”, says Sophie Silver, the CEO and co-founder of Polymath.

Cohesive Learning In and Out of the Classroom

Polymath is used both in the household and at schools, with the school version engaging students and serving as a gateway to the at-home experience, proving parents can trust Polymath with genuine educational endorsement.

Polymath in the classroom gets kids excited about maths regardless of ability. Because it’s free, teachers can adopt Polymath without complex approval processes. Polymath is growing rapidly in New Zealand classrooms, with 50% of NZ primary schools having signed up and teachers raving about Polymath across the country.

Claire Cheeseman, who teaches years 5 & 6 in Laingholm, Auckland says “[Polymath is] probably the best website find this year [2024]. We are a year 3/4 class and they LOVE chasing records - trying to beat their accuracy and correct answers. As a teacher I love that I can set an option for my class to work independently.”

Kids take Polymath home from school because they’re excited to keep playing. At home, where there’s more time to explore, kids have access to all of the game features of Polymath.

Polymath has a strong understanding of the relationship between teachers, parents, and children. “GD1’s investment in Polymath was driven early by the clear user obsession the team exhibited even in our first meeting. The early progress and insights the team acquired whether it was by advocating in teacher groups on Facebook, or adhoc running polymath sessions and competitions in schools across the country highlighted a clear commitment to not only deeply understanding both sides of the user base but also a desire to move rapidly through the business building phase. This tenacity and strong commitment to drive learnings through understanding the early users was pivotal in enabling us to become early believers. We eagerly look forward to what Sophie, Christian and the team achieve over the coming years” said Vignesh Kumar, Co-Managing Partner, GD1.

Doubling Learning with Fun: What Sets Polymath Apart

To a child, Polymath looks and feels like a game. There’s collecting, there’s building, there’s multiplayer, there are characters that children need to look after.

At the core of Polymath is an algorithm that adapts learning moments to each child’s progress, ensuring their experience is personalied and rewarding. To finish a house, a child might need to measure its dimensions. They might need to spot when they’re getting a bad deal from a shop. Polymath steers kids towards activities that match their current abilities.

Blackbird Ventures was drawn to Polymath for its commitment to building an amazing product. “Watching Christian and Sophie work I was struck by their ability to iterate quickly on their product, listen closely to their users for feedback, and build a game with strikingly long session times given it involved maths! This is a scrappy team who are delivering a product that kids love, and parents love that their kids love.” says Phoebe Harrop, General Partner at Blackbird Ventures.

The team has built a fraction of what Polymath can be. They’re working towards a more dynamic world with activities like farming and looking after pets, as well as multiplayer features so that kids can motivate each other to learn.

“We’re constantly experimenting with new features in our game world. Trying a new character here, a new way to ask questions there. We’re pushing new ideas out almost daily. The whole team, engineers included, work in person with kids so we get immediate feedback on what’s fun and what’s not” says Christian Silver, the CTO and co-founder of Polymath.

Looking Ahead

With the funding, in addition to focusing on US market expansion, Polymath will extend its offerings to include collaborative play, enhancing the social aspects that make screen time more meaningful for children. These features will replicate the collaboration that happens in classrooms and make learning more engaging for students in a safe digital environment.

Polymath has already experienced significant growth, as tens of thousands of children have played Polymath worldwide, with uptake in New Zealand, the US, UK, and Australia.

Discover Polymath: parents looking for screen time they can feel good about can learn more and sign up at https://polymath.how/.

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