SuperAwesome, which makes internet content safe for viewing by kids, has raised a $13 million round of financing led by Harbert European Growth Capital.
SuperAwesome’s ‘kidtech’ infrastructure is used by hundreds of kids companies, such as Mattel, Disney, Hasbro, and Lego to enable kid-safe content, advertising, and other digital services.
The company has defined the digital standards which now keep more than half a billion children anonymous when they engage with online games and videos. Other investors include Mayfair Equity Partners and Hoxton Ventures.
“The company’s debt offering was significantly oversubscribed, which is a testament to our growth and robust unit economics. We’re delighted to welcome Harbert European Growth Capital as a partner,” said Dylan Collins, SuperAwesome CEO, in a statement. “In the light of the continuing controversies around Big Tech capturing personal data on children, it’s never been more important to have infrastructure which can enable safe, anonymous digital engagement for children online. We are seeing an overwhelming response by responsible companies everywhere for this.”
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Above: SuperAwesome targets appropriate ads at kids.
SuperAwesome said it increased revenue by more than 75 percent in 2018, reaching a revenue run rate of almost $60 million. Several factors have driven the company’s growth:
- SuperAwesome’s Popjam platform has become the community management tool of choice for young influencers and brands interacting with their under-13 audience on YouTube.
- The rapid decline of kids TV is shifting vast amounts of digital dollars into the kids audience, which now requires specific privacy-based technology. It is compliant with the U.S. COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) and Europe’s GDPR-K (General Data Protection Regulation).
- Growing focus on children’s digital privacy: New laws are mandating specific zero-data ‘kidtech’ to ensure children are kept anonymous with all digital interactions. AOL/Oath was recently fined $5M for illegally capturing personal data on an under-13 audience.
SuperAwesome also disclosed growing levels of profitability, significantly beating their targets.
“We are thrilled to be able to support SuperAwesome’s growth plans as part of this capital raise,” said Johan Kampe, senior managing director at Harbert European Growth Capital, in a statement.
SuperAwesome also revealed plans to launch a dedicated kids ad-based video-on-demand service (AVOD), offering completely free streaming content to children.
“As the infrastructure behind the kids digital media ecosystem, including the largest kid-safe ad delivery platform, we are in a unique position to enable an AVOD service built specifically for the privacy and safety needs of the industry,” Collins said. “In particular there is a huge requirement for a dedicated platform focused on the needs of family YouTubers and influencers who have very large under-13 audiences but simply can’t be serviced by YouTube because of its design as an adult platform.”
