St. Louis educational technology startup Mathbrix has snagged $1 million in federal funding to advance development of a new app for early childhood education.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Mathbrix a $1 million grant from its Small Business Innovation Research program, with the funding to support the local startup’s learning mobile app ThinkPlayful. Mathbrix said the grant will help with testing its new app with early childhood education organizations and public libraries.
The million-dollar grant follows $225,000 awarded by the NSF to Mathbrix in 2019, with the prior funding being used to develop a prototype for ThinkPlayful, said co-founder Tyler Schwartz. Founded in 2016, Mathbrix has developed and created cloud-based games and activities meant to bolster math education and that are designed to complement classroom instruction.
ThinkPlayful is an app that promotes "off-screen, developmentally appropriate learning activities” that children and parents can participate in together and includes voice-directed activities, according to Mathbrix. The startup said the app includes activities such as completing an obstacle course or sorting and matching items in the yard. Schwartz said ThinkPlayful wants children and parents involved together in learning activities rather than children using an app by themselves to learn skills.
“There’s a tremendous amount of research that shows that it’s really not the best thing for a child this age. The ideal thing is for parent and child to be interacting,” he said.
Schwartz said the $1 million in funding from the NSF will be used to build out ThinkPlayful, adding new activities to the app, and testing the app through pilots with early childhood centers and libraries. Mathbrix will work with San Francisco-based nonprofit education research and development agency WestEd to conduct its pilots, Schwartz said.
Mathbrix co-founder and CEO Bettie Schwartz said ThinkPlayful plans to license its app to early childhood education organizations and libraries, which would offer the app free of charge to parents. She said a goal of ThinkPlayful is to provide an educational tool to families, especially under-resourced families, that allows parents to be involved in their child’s education at home. She said parent involvement has shown to be critical to children being up to grade level in subjects like math and reading.
“If you look at the research, parent involvement is really key to it,” said Bettie Schwartz, a former assistant superintendent at the Ladue School District.
Mathbrix also plans to use its $1 million grant from NSF to pursue equity investment from other funders. The grant program matches 50% of outside investment up to $1 million. Mathbrix, with six full-time and six part-time employees, previously raised $1 million, Bettie Schwartz said. Investors in the company have included St. Louis-based venture firm Capital Innovators and Missouri Technology Corp., the private-public entity that invests in startups.
