Downward penetration
was informed that Matalab, a children’s programming brand, recently completed a round of financing of RMB 30 million, led by Qing Ginkgo (National Small and Medium Enterprise Development Fund) and Jinxin Capital. Mata Chuang thought that he had previously obtained Tongchuang Weiye, Zhongnan Venture Capital, Mingshi Capital Angel and Pre-A round of financing, and the current valuation is several hundred million yuan. Mata Creative said that this round of financing will be used as supplementary funds for operations, focusing on product development, curriculum development, and channel expansion.
In-kind programming, compiled and acquired
Mata Creative was founded in July 2017 and is a STEAM service provider. In the view of founder Su Rongxing, existing children’s programming products and courses need to be linked to computers or IPADs, using more complex graphical programming languages or professional computer languages such as Scratch, Python, JavaScript, C++, etc., most of the users are children over 6 years old.
But programming is not a patent for computer talent. Su Rongxing believes that the computational thinking dimension behind programming can “get up from the doll”, so Mata Creative Research team spent a year Time to develop a Marta Chuangyi programming robot for younger children: the product is based on the game scene, following the cognitive development of children from figurative to abstract, without linking to a mobile phone or tablet, starting with physical programming, using graphics Color, sound, etc. are implemented as auxiliary media, allowing children to establish basic programming concepts such as instructions and sequences to develop computational thinking.
Mata programming robot is divided into control tower, programming board, programming module, map four main components, as well as scene props and expansion packs. When a child gets a task card, he first analyzes where the target is, thinks about the planned route, and then completes the task through route programming. The operation is also relatively simple. You only need to use the modular module to edit the forward, backward, bend, loop, function and other instructions on the programming board to see the corresponding action of the robot on the map. As a result of the compilation, Marta Creative Robot allows children to understand the programming essentials, and to continue to expand through the related topics and game scenes, and to add high-level content such as music and painting.
B-end C-end, two-pronged
Ma Ta Chuang wants to divide the product into a family version and an education version: the family version advocates parent-child play, and the education version provides training tools, courses, and teacher training for kindergartens, primary schools, and educational institutions.
At the B end, according to Mata Chuangyi co-founder and COO Zheng Xiaoxiong, the current Marta Chuangxiang products have entered more than 2,000 kindergartens and primary schools in more than 40 countries and regions including Yingde, France, the United States, Korea, and New Zealand. It has been adopted by Future Classroom Lab as a pre-school programming aid for more than 20 FCL teaching and research centers around the world.
The reason why it entered the overseas market is because STEAM originated in Europe and America and has become one of the mainstream education methods in Western countries. Therefore, we initially focused on overseas markets and completed business expansion in 40 countries and regions in one year.
Since this year, the Mata Chuangyi team has felt the warming of STEAM products in the domestic preschool market and primary schools. “The current domestic market situation is that kindergartens and primary schools recognize the concept of STEAM, but there is no corresponding teaching aids and courses to achieve daily teaching activities,” said Mata Creative Co-founder and COO Zheng Xiaoxiong. Mata Creative offers a complete set of programming-focused STEAM solutions for kindergartens and elementary schools, offering not only teaching aids, but also complementary courses, material packages and teacher training.
It is reported that Mata Chuangxin has cooperated with nearly 500 kindergartens and training institutions nationwide. At the same time, it has also established strategic partnerships with Tong Cheng Tongmei, Xitia, Babel Beibei, Aikesi, Children’s Technology Camp and Baidu Education.
In addition to the market at the B end, Marta has also launched a package for the consumer market. Cheng Wenpeng, head of domestic sales at Marta, said that parents are less aware of family programming products, so Mata wanted to popularize the concept of programming enlightenment through social media in the early stage, such as Ivy Daddy, Kay Uncle, and Yin Jianli. Schools and other well-known WeChat large; from the results, KOL’s conversion is better than expected.
Summary: In the retail channel, Marta has entered Carrefour, Auchan, Fnac, Conrad, Darty, El Corte Ingles, ALLTRON, AppleAPR in Europe, ToysRus in North America, and entered Sam’s Club in China. Chain system such as the Blue Age. In addition, the global Amazon and Tmall flagship stores are also starting to sell simultaneously.