Jakarta-based incubator IdeoSource has made an investment in Kark Mobile Education, a Singaporean startup whose “edutainment” tablet platform has yet to even launch.
The startup’s product, which will also be called Kark, will use interactive elements to help children aged four to twelve learn with its apps. The backing comes as Kark comes close to completing the JFDI–Innov8 2012 Bootcamp, a 100-day long program that propells fifty entrepreneurs from ideas to inception and investment. It hasn’t been made known how much Ideosource is ploughing into the startup, but it comes on top of the “S$15,000 investment for a negotiable equity stake” that comes from the intense JFDI and SingTel Innov8 course. Kark – and the other bootcampers – still have the chance to pitch to a room of investors on May 4th.
Kark’s founder and CTO Bullitt Sezaria, speaking after the IdeoSource backing, said in a press release:
We are delighted to have this support, which gives us the ability to continue building our product after the bootcamp and reinforces what we have believed all along – that games have a great future in the educational industry. We will be unveiling our exciting new product aimed at the family education market shortly.
Ideasource director Andi Surja Boediman described Kark as “a good innovation in digital industry,” and said that the team will support the entrepreneurs “in many ways.”
Kark still has the opportunity to impress more folks and maybe gain even more backing when they pitch at the ‘demo day’ in Jakarta next month. The city has proved to be a great place for the Singapore startup so far. JFDI Asia’s co-founder Wong Meng Weng said today:
We’ve been impressed with Kark since we first met the team in Jakarta. This investment, coming before the official Demo Day, is proof of the progress the startup has made since joining us in Singapore a couple of months ago.
You can follow Kark’s road to launch on the startup’s blog.