French startup PowerZ raised a further 3 8.3 million (€7 million at today’s exchange rate) with a debt of $1.2 million (€ 1 million) – the rest being a traditional theoretical equity round. The company is an Aditech startup and a video game studio with an ambitious goal – it wants to create a game that is as interesting as Mincraft or Fortnite, but focused on learning. In February, PowerZ launched the first version of its game on computers. It doesn’t have a lot of content, but the company wanted to start repeating as soon as possible. Aiming at children six years of age or older, PowerZ teleports the player to an imaginary world through intelligent dragons and magic spells.
Emanuel Friend, co-founder and CEO, told me, “The idea is to create a kind of Harry Potter.” “This world is great and very interesting to you. Like Hogwarts, you want to come back regularly and the story will go on for a long time. 15,000 children tried the first chapter. On average they spent four hours playing. I asked if the friend was satisfied with these metrics. He told me that he thought his organization’s philosophy was “completely legitimate.”
BPFerence Digital Ventures, Race Ventures and Byrd are investing in today’s round. Existing investors Educapital, Hatchit Leverage, Pierre Cossiasco-Moritz and Michel Benabou are reinvesting. Now, it’s time to add content, expand to other platforms and launch new languages. When it comes to content, the company wants to partner with other game studios. They are going to design new islands and games that will teach you new stuff. Zero Games, Opal Games and Arcrep are the first third-party studios to contribute to PowerZ.
When these new chapters become available, kids will be able to practice mental arithmetic, geometry, vocabulary, foreign languages, sign language, but also astronomy, photography, architecture, sculpture, cooking, wildlife, yoga, etc. “Basically we want to position ourselves as a publisher,” Friend says. “The main story is just that we want to stay home.” As a new platform, PowerZ is launching its game on the iPad this week. The company realized that turning on the computer was a mistake. Adults are already using computers or do not want to leave your kid on the computer.
