INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
LittleBits is making its first acquisition
The New York-based educational hardware company has agreed to acquire DIY.co, an educational social network for kids
Co-founded in 2011 by Vimeo Zach Klein, the San Francisco-based software startup is behind the DIY.org online community and jam.com, a
subscription-based STEAM educational platform
Over the years we&ve explored dozens of acquisitions, strategic deals, mergers,& littleBits founder and CEO Ayah Bdeir told TechCrunch
&We&re very actively looking at that stuff all the time
But DIY, Zach and his team stand out as a match made in heaven.&
DIY product will serve as the software foundation for littleBits& projects
For starters, the company will provide a kind of software instruction booklet for littleBits& kits, including a trio of new ones due out
Those will follow the startup recent Avengers kits, the second product to take advantage of its Disney accelerator connections
From there, its seems pretty clear how the company social networking and hundreds of hours of online instructional videos will complement
littleBits& long-standing goal of empowering children through STEM educational tools
We&re creating an environment where kids are teaching kids,& Klein tells TechCrunch
&That was our mission from day one, to create a space where kids can develop learning strategies for other kids, instead of a
one-size-fits-all approach to education
We&re creating an environment where kids are forging the pathways that other kids can find and follow.
DIY.co, will stay in its San
Francisco office, allowing littleBits to expand its presence to the West Coast, where most of its investors are based
The company name and sub-brands like Jam will also remain intact, allowing littleBits to leverage the cachet the brand has built over the
years, including some 1.5 million projects uploaded by 550,000 registered users
DIY team of 15 will also stay on, joining littleBit existing staff of 100+ employees
The expertises are really complementary,& says Bdeir
&Zach team, their skill set is in software product and community building and content creation
Those are things we don''t have a lot of expertise in
We wouldn''t be doing this if we weren''t bullish about the future
This is the beginning of us doing many more aggressive steps to becoming the leading learning-to-play company in the world.
LittleBits is
clearly starting to put to use some of the $65 million it raised, by growing the company through acquisitions and other means
In the case of DIY, the deal is certainly a complementary one
This combination isn''t just about merging two mission-aligned brands,& Jon Callaghan, co-founder of littleBits investor True Ventures,
&It reflective of a larger trend among consumer brands like Peloton and Netflix that recognize that quality content is, once again,
king.
Terms of the deal have not been disclosed
