Mobile Learning Games Developer MindSnacks Secures $1.2 Million in Funding

SAN FRANCISCO, March 9, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- MindSnacks, a developer of educational games for mobile devices, today announced that it has secured $1.2 million in funding. The round was led by Felicis Ventures, with leading Silicon Valley angel investors, including 500 Startups (Dave McClure) and Mitch Kapor, also participating. The company will use the financing to support its growth plans, including hiring engineers and game designers to expand its current product and platform offerings.

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MindSnacks makes learning fun with mobile applications that deliver addictive "bite-sized" learning experiences. Frequent rewards and progressive challenges keep users engaged and motivated to learn. The games are designed to be played in short bursts, so even those with a fast-paced, busy lifestyle can find time to keep learning. Its current apps focus on language learning, and each mini-game addresses a specific need, such as vocabulary, spelling, grammar, and sentence construction.

"MindSnacks brings a new approach to learning. Our goal is to close the gap in entertainment value that exists between games and education," said Jesse Pickard, co-founder and CEO, MindSnacks. "Current self-study options are completely out of sync with how people consume media today. There is pent up demand for entertaining educational products that are available in bite-size chunks. MindSnacks fills that need."

MindSnacks will apply its unique game-based approach to meet a variety of self-education needs as it expands its product portfolio. It currently addresses an $80 billion dollar worldwide market for language learning, fueled by rapid globalization and travel.

"With the widespread popularity of mobile, touch-based devices and social games, MindSnacks is poised to transform an industry that is largely characterized by dull, time-intensive and expensive language solutions," said Aydin Senkut, founder and managing director at Felicis Ventures.

Other investors that participated in this round include Geoff Ralston, David Jeske, Oleg Tscheltzoff, Collaborative Fund, StartupAngel, ENIAC Ventures, Maneesh Arora, David Kim, Theoria Capital, Startl, and DreamIt Ventures.

MindSnacks Spanish and MindSnacks French are available now through the iTunes App Store. For more information, go to www.mindsnacks.com. To view a video of how the games works, visit http://vimeo.com/19715412.

About MindSnacks

MindSnacks is a San Francisco-based start-up passionate about changing the way people learn with a platform of multi-player learning games for touch-based mobile devices. Funded by top-tier venture capital and angel investors, MindSnacks takes a unique, entertainment-based approach to educational games with the goal of making learning addictive, social and fun. MindSnacks was founded by Jesse Pickard, Karl Stenerud, Jeff Evans and Andy Mroczkowski. For more information, visit www.mindsnacks.com.  

About Felicis Ventures

Founded in 2006 by Aydin Senkut, Felicis Ventures is a super angel fund backed by institutional as well as high profile individual investors and based in Palo Alto, California. It is focused on supporting the best and brightest technology entrepreneurs with capital, mentorship and connections. Felicis Ventures' portfolio is comprised of leading mobile and consumer Internet companies including Brightroll, Bump, Crowdflower, Erply, Imageshack, Inkling, Meraki, Posterous, Practice Fusion, Wildfire and Yume Networks. Recent exits of portfolio companies include Aardvark (acquired by Google), GeoAPI (acquired by Twitter), Mint (acquired by Intuit), Milo (acquired by eBay), Mob.ly (acquired by Groupon), Mochi Media (acquired by Shanda Games), Plusmo (acquired by AT&T), Powerset (acquired by Microsoft) and Tapulous (acquired by Disney). For more information, visit http://www.felicis.com/. 

SOURCE MindSnacks