99math, an Estonia-based EdTech gaming platform to motivate students to learn maths, has raised $1 million to boost the expansion of use in the classroom and implement monetization.
The round was led by Genesis Investments and supported by Change Ventures and five angels from well-known unicorns, including Bolt, Transferwise, and Pipedrive.
99math is a free tool for teachers and schools to engage students and works as a platform for game-based math practice. Math problems are generated based on a teacher’s choice, and students play on their devices. Starting the game takes less than 1 minute and the entire classroom is engaged all at once.
Established in 2019 by a founder of three EdTech products Tonis Kusmin, Timo Timmi, and Arin Arend, 99math is designed to help students, between the first and sixth grades, learn and engage with a tricky subject: math.
After debuting as a beta tool three years ago, 99math grew into a gaming platform for kids with over 300,000 engaged users. Together, students in 99math have solved over 170 million math problems.
Speaking about the development, Founder and CEO of 99math Tonis Kusmin said,
"For many students, math is the hardest and most boring subject in school. When children receive negative feedback about their skills (not always straight A's in math), they begin to believe they are not good at it. Eventually, they try less. But math is a super important subject, half of the college entrance test scores consist of math. But games celebrate success, they reward the player for steps in progress, and so the kids want to progress more and more. With 99math we’ve shown how fun and exciting math can be, and that students can learn to love succeeding in math. Through the positive feedback loop in the game, we build up the child's skills and belief in their abilities, they start to think, ‘I can do the math. I can take on the next problem.’ That is why we're focused on improving the learning process for students with a game."
The learning platform aims to help teachers make their lessons more fun and motivate students. The game lets the participant choose between different mathematical equations and compete with the whole class to see who’s the best.
Vital Laptenok, General Partner at Genesis Investments has also responded to the latest investments, saying
"With proven 100% organic growth and solid traction, we are excited to add 99math, an important startup for STEM education, to our portfolio and be on board with such notable investors. As the lead investor in the round, we will share our expertise in subscription businesses and EdTech products to help 99math scale in the U.S. and globally."
99math will remain free-to-use for teachers and schools in the classroom and will monetize through a premium subscription model for parents for use of the game independent of classwork.
