imagiLabs, an edtech startup that’s building a community to inspire, and educate the next generation of female technologists, has secured €250K (approx £215K) in pre-seed funding.
Who backed imagiLabs?
Angel investors participating in the round include Eros Resmini, Founder & Managing Partner at The Mini Fund and the former CMO of messaging platform Discord, David Baszucki, CEO of gaming giant Roblox, members of Atomico’s Angel Program, and Propel Capital, the investment arm of Stockholm’s leading tech incubator Sting.
Also, numerous high-profile proponents of gender equality in technology participated in the round.
How will the funding be used?
The financing will be used to accelerate international growth and to continue to foster an engaged community of young girl coders.
Bridging gender divide
Founded by Alexa Edstrom, Beatrice Ionascu, and Dora Palfi in 2018, imagiLabs is a female-founded startup that makes coding more accessible to young girls.
According to the founders, the Swedish company aims to bridge the gender divide in coding with its wearable device, the imagiCharm.
imagiCharm is a wearable device that can be visually customised to display tens of thousands of different designs, based upon the Python code written by a user.
Growing community in the UK
imagiLabs ships its flagship product – imagiCharm directly to the UK, as there’s a growing community of young female coders. The imagiCharm (imagiLabs’ wearable device which teaches young girls to code) has been stocked in Selfridges since December 2020, claims the company.
Notably, imagiCharm sales increased by 300% between Q3 and Q4 of 2020. Since the imagiLabs’ app launched nine months ago, over 10,000 coding projects have been created on the platform.
First Swedish company into Apple’s Entrepreneur Camp
It’s worth mentioning that imagiLabs was the first Swedish company to be accepted into Apple’s Entrepreneur Camp (spring 2019 cohort), and was also selected for Google for Startups (Female Founders Fall 2019 cohort).
The company’s clients include Swedish telecoms giant Ericsson and Tekla Festival.
Dora Palfi, imagiLabs CEO and co-founder, comments: “This funding will help us on our mission to get as many young girls into coding as possible. Ultimately, we want to inspire people to learn to love coding and to foster that kind of passion from an early age. Only by supporting young girls while at school can we build gender parity in tech for future generations. The support of these fantastic investors will help drive this.”
Eros Resmini, Founder & Managing Partner at The Mini Fund and former Discord CMO, adds: “I’m delighted to be supporting imagiLabs on its mission to bridge the gender divide in tech. The company has created a vibrant community for young girls who want to learn to code. As the proud father of a daughter, I know that fun and social learning processes can foster passions that last a lifetime.”
The post This wearable device teaches young girls to code, grabs £215K funding appeared first on UKTN (UK Tech News).
