ENTER THE DRAGON: Sokikom, an online game-based math program, has been acquired by Jumpstart World. The deal was announced in a post by Sokikom’s founder and CEO, Snehal Patel.
Jumpstart is a subsidiary of NetDragon WebSoft, a Chinese conglomerate with roots in the online gaming industry and is expanding into education. Los Angeles-based Jumpstart, which also owns iconic title such as Math Blaster and Neopets, was bought by NetDragon in July 2017. NetDragon also snapped up Promethean, best known in the mid-2000’s for its interactive whiteboards, for $130 million in 2015.
Founded in 2008, Sokikom offered a suite of collaborative math games aimed for students in grades K-5. The company initially tried selling directly to teachers and parents before focusing on schools in 2014. Patel wrote the product has reached “hundreds of thousands of students and educators from all 50 states and over 120 countries” throughout the years.
The company had received more than $2.1 million across six grants from the U.S. Department of Education’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. The company has also raised another $1.5 million from angel investors including Zynga co-founder Steve Schoettler and former Intel CEO Craig Barrett.
Patel is stepping aside from Sokikom and will be taking personal time off, according to his note. He declined to comment on the deal.
