SplashLearn bet young kids learn math better through games than books or videos

SplashLearn builds a library of more than 4,000 educational games for children from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade, tying math and literacy concepts to characters, sold direct to parents, schools and teachers.

Turning early-childhood learning into an interactive game, rather than a book or video, produces higher engagement and better outcomes than one-way formats.

$18M Series C led by OWL Ventures, with Accel (which led the prior Series B) participating

Before founding SplashLearn, CEO Arpit Jain and his co-founders had already built one edtech startup targeting the high-school market. They concluded the real problem started earlier — young kids were being taught to memorize math facts rather than engage with the subject — after talking directly with parents outside coaching centers, and rebuilt the company (initially as Splash Math) around game-based learning for pre-K through fifth grade.

SplashLearn grew its library to more than 4,000 games and reached 40 million registered users, adding 10 million in the year before this round, plus over 750,000 registered teachers. The COVID-19 pandemic pushed more families toward remote learning and tutoring, increasing demand. OWL Ventures led an $18M Series C, with prior Series B lead Accel participating, to expand SplashLearn's presence in the U.S., U.K., Australia and Canada and grow its group-tutoring product launched the year before.

Talking to parents directly, rather than assuming the high-school pain point generalized downward, surfaced a different and larger problem.

Math disengagement forms early, so intervening at pre-K through fifth grade addresses the root cause rather than a downstream symptom.

Interactive games are inherently two-way, unlike books and videos, giving SplashLearn a structural engagement edge over the dominant remote-learning formats.

COVID-19-driven remote schooling created urgent, immediate demand for both the core product and the newer tutoring line.

A founding team's first attempt at a market can point them to the real problem one level down — here, math disengagement actually started in early childhood.

As of February 2021, SplashLearn — based in San Francisco with a roughly 230-person team based in India — was expanding into the U.S., U.K., Australia and Canada, growing its group-tutoring product, and planning to grow headcount by 30–40% over the year.