MONEY PIPES: San Francisco-based STEAM education company Piper has raised $7.6 million in a Series A funding round led by Owl Ventures, a VC fund focused on edtech. According to a press release, previous investors Reach Capital and Stanford’s StartX fund also participated in the raise, as well as new investor Charles Huang, the co-founder of Guitar Hero.
The company’s DIY Computer Kit, which introduces kids to computer science and engineering through tinkering with Minecraft and Raspberry Pi, claims to prepare “kids for a lifetime of building technology.” It's sold at Barnes & Noble, Amazon and Toys R Us for about $300. In a phone call with EdSurge, Mark Pavlyukovskyy, the company’s co-founder and CEO, said part of the funding will be used “to build more exciting add-ons for Piper,” and hinted that these would be physical objects for kids to build.
