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When Kahoot, the startup that operates a popular platform for user-generated educational gaming, raised $15 million in October of this year, we mentioned that Disney might take a larger stake in the company, beyond the small investment it took after Kahoot passed through the Disney Accelerator. Now with some 60 million games on its platform, today Kahoot announced that this has come to pass: Disney has backed Kahoot to the tune of $15 million — working out to a four percent stake in the startup at a $360 million valuation, based on the current share price of 28 Norwegian kroner (shares of Kahoot are traded on the Norway OTC as an unlisted stock). Kahoot declined to comment for this story beyond the investment announcement posted on the exchange, but for some context, this is a nice bump up in Kahoot’s valuation from October, when it was at $300 million. Other sizeable and notable investors in the company include Microsoft and Nordic investor Northzone (which has backed Spotify and other significant startups out of the region). On the part of Disney, it’s not clear yet whether its Kahoot stake will lead to more Disney content on the platform, or if this is more of an arm’s length financial backing. The entertainment giant has made nearly 50 investments by way of its accelerator program. In some cases it increases those to more significant holdinga, as it has in the case of HQ Trivia, Sphero, Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite (a very different take on gaming compared to Kahoot), Samba TV and more. Disney has been dabbling in both gaming and education as vehicles to market its many brands, and also as salient businesses of their own — no surprise, given that one primary focus for it has been on younger consumers and their needs and interests. In some cases, it seems it may use strategic investments to do this, for example with Disney-themed nights on HQ Trivia. Interestingly, although it doesn’t appear that Disney invests in Byju’s — which itself just raised $300 million — the educational app, which has been described as “Disneyesque”, teamed up with Disney in October to develop co-branded educational content, another sign of Disney’s interest in the field. Kahoot has been around since 2006 but has seen a sharp rise in users in the last few years on the back of strong growth in the US — benefitting from a wider trend of educators creating content on mediums and platforms that they know students already use and love. Kahoot’s last reported user numbers come from January, when it said it had 70 million registrations, but its CEO and co-founder Åsmund Furuseth told TechCrunch in October that it was on track to pass 100 million by this month. Kahoot didn’t release updated figures today, but my guess is that Kahoot has hit its target (maybe even passed it), and that is one reason why Disney decided to exercise its investment option. Kahoot is not your average gaming company: some games are created in-house, but the majority of them are user-generated — “Kahoots” in the company’s parlance — created by the people setting the learning tasks or those trying to create a more entertaining way of remembering or learning something. These, in turn, become games that potentially anyone can use to learn something (hence the name). There have been about 60 million of these games created to date, a pretty massive amount considering this is educational content at the end of the day. Kahoot has developed its business along two avenues, with games for K-12 students and games for business users, building training and other professional development in a wrapper of gamification to engage workers more in the content. In practice, about half the games in Kahoot’s catalogue are available to the public and half are private, with the split roughly following the company’s business model: games made for corporate purposes tend to be kept private, while the educational ones tend to be made publicly available. The business model also follows that split, with Kahoot’s business users accounting for the majority of its revenue, too. We have contacted Disney for comment too and will update this post as we learn more. ... Read More
Pokémon Go creator Niantic is raising a $200 million Series C at a valuation of $3.9 billion according to a report from Katie Roof at the WSJ. The round is expected to be led by IVP with participation from Samsung and aXiomatic Gaming. The upcoming raise would bring the company’s total funding to $425 million according to Crunchbase. Niantic’s last round was raised at a $3 billion valuation. TechCrunch has reached out to Niantic for comment. The gaming startup which has invested significantly in augmented reality technologies is also behind titles such as its recently updated Ingress title and an upcoming Harry Potter mobile game. The company was founded as a startup within Google in 2010 and was spun out as its own entity in 2015, releasing its hit title Pokémon Go the next year. The company is currently working on its next big augmented reality mobile title Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, aiming to create a proper follow-up hit that can capture the excitement of its Pokémon title. The app’s success will likely be crucial to perceptions that Pokémon Go was more than a fluke breakout success. A release date has not yet been set for the title. ... Read More
Apple Music support for Amazon Echo devices has arrived, a few days earlier than it was scheduled to hit on December 17th. It’s rolling out now on the Alexa app for iOS and Android, adding Apple Music to the list of supported music streaming services, which already includes Spotify, Pandora, and iHeartRadio. Once you link your Apple Music account to Alexa through the app, you can set it as your default streaming service so you don’t have to specify every time you ask Alexa to play something. Apple Music subscribers can ask Alexa to play songs from their personal playlists, the entire Apple Music library, or the service’s curated playlists and radio stations. Unfortunately, the Apple Music update is limited to Echo... Continue reading… ... Read More
Epic announced this morning that its new and controversial Infinity Blade “mythic” item has been removed from Fortnite, following widespread criticism over the item’s overpowered nature and game-breaking position as a pinnacle, late-game weapon. The reversal, while not the first time Epic has changed course on an unpopular design decision rather quickly, is notable for the language the developer used to announce it, as well as how much Epic hyped up the item in marketing and promos for the recently released season 7. “We messed up and rolled out the Infinity Blade overpowered / without good counters, especially in the end game,” reads the company’s tweet publicizing the change. “The Infinity Blade has been Vaulted and we are... Continue reading… ... Read More
Company also pledges to roll out self-serve publishing option so "all developers" can release games through Discord... Read More
[UPDATE]: Developer says the takedown was for promoting and advertising game mod tools, "not directly related" to leaking... Read More
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