Press Release
SuperAwesome takes investment from Microsoft’s M12 and others to continue rollout of its kids’ digital engagement platform
NEW YORK (27/1/2020) SuperAwesome, the kidtech platform which powers COPPA-compliant advertising and community for hundreds of developers, content owners and brands, has raised a strategic financing round from M12, Microsoft’s venture fund and others.
The company’s platform enables kid-safe advertising, video, community and parental consent functionality. It’s a full-stack set of tools for anyone who’s working on kids digital engagement, which is being increasingly regulated by new digital privacy laws like COPPA, GDPR-K, CCPA and others. With revenues growing at 50% annually, SuperAwesome is now powering over 12b kids digital transactions every month.
Best known for its kid-safe ad platform which safely monetizes thousands of kids app developers and creators, in recent years the company has expanded into kid-safe community and parental consent. The ‘powered by SuperAwesome’ logo is appearing on increasing numbers of consumer experiences which either directly or indirectly engage with kids. Customers include LEGO, NBC Universal, Hasbro, WPP, Omnicom, Dentsu, Mattel, Niantic, Wildworks and hundreds of others.
Children’s digital privacy laws have been passed in US (COPPA), EU (GDPR-K) but are also being passed and expanded in China, Brazil and India. In September, Google was fined $170m by the FTC for breaching COPPA and allowing kids personal data to be collected on YouTube. In Europe there is an ongoing investigation into the collection of children’s data by major tech companies.
Dylan Collins, CEO stated: “Historically the internet was designed to be used by adults but now over 40% of new users are kids. We’re in the middle of a structural shift in the composition of the internet that requires investment in privacy and kidtech to support children. This is as big a transition as mobile was for the desktop internet”.
Collins continued: “We’re delighted to welcome M12 on board. As the company building the kidtech infrastructure that makes the internet safer for children, it was very important to align with investors who share our values. With Microsoft’s leadership in privacy and of course their significant investment in Minecraft, it was clear we had a common set of perspectives about what the future of the internet looks like.”
“We are proud to welcome the SuperAwesome team to the M12 portfolio. Dylan has cultivated a mission-driven team dedicated to keeping the internet safer for kids—a critical priority for digital-first generations,” said Nagraj Kashyap, Microsoft Corporate Vice President and Global Head of M12. “Given Microsoft’s footprint in the identity management space, we’re excited to explore opportunities for partnership with SuperAwesome as well.”
About M12 Ventures
M12 is Microsoft’s corporate venture fund. M12 invests in enterprise software companies in the Series A through C funding stages with a focus on big data & analytics, business SaaS, cloud infrastructure, machine learning & artificial intelligence, productivity and security. As part of its value-add to portfolio companies, M12 offers unique access to strategic go-to-market resources and relationships globally. M12 has offices in San Francisco, Seattle, London, Tel Aviv, and Bengaluru. https://m12.vc
