2017 was a rocky year for kids content on the internet, and the growing need for kid-friendly technology has thrown some heretofore unknown kidtech startups into the spotlight.
The less than 5-year-old kidtech company SuperAwesome is leading the charge, with their first-ever profitable quarter at the end of 2017, 70% growth year-over-year, and a $100m valuation.
Recent controversies around what should be labeled as “kids content” on platforms like YouTube have shown a pressing need for regulations that make tech safer for kids — and SuperAwesome aims to fill in the gaps.
Their technology powers many big-name platforms in the children’s market like Activision, Hasbro, and Cartoon Network to ensure kid-safe advertising, social engagement tools, and parental controls. And that advertisers aren’t tracking children’s personal data.
SuperAwesome accredits the world’s shift to digital as a main source of its growth, with TV viewing falling 10 to 20% annually — but many companies didn’t take kids into account when the digital shift first started taking place (child “digital budgets” are now growing 25% YoY).
But SuperAwesome’s already got it covered: their kid social platform, PopJam, lets developers create experiences where kids can like, comment, share, and repurpose online kid-friendly content — priming young bucks for the days when tech consumes their lives completely. Perfect.
Yuh-Tube has been in a frenzy over the past year, desperately trying to figure out how to protect kids from the seemingly insurmountable influx of inappropriate content targeting them on the site.
And if SuperAwesome can figure out how to effectively police it, the world is their playpen.