TYNKER: $3.25 million to Mountain View, Calif.-based Tynker from angels and 500 Startups, NEA, Felicis Ventures, NewSchools Venture Fund, Cervin Ventures, GSV Advisors, XG Ventures among others for a company that aims to help kids learn to program. Tynker was inspired by Scratch, a programming language for kids developed at MIT. It uses Open Web standards such as Javascript and HTML5, and aims to teach the thought process behind coding more than churning out lines of code. The company was founded a year ago by serial entrepreneurs Krishna Vedati, chief technology officer Srinivas Mandyam, and chief architect Kelvin Chong. Tynker has been piloted in more than 40 elementary and middle schools in the San Francisco Bay area. Tynker is available for free for schools. (Request it here). Deets from the company here. Coding for kids is clearly a big trend with organizations such as Code.org urging schools to offer programming for their students.
Also see: "Teaching Coding: Where Do You Start?"
