Playrific, a leading digital media aggregation service for children, announced today that it has closed an oversubscribed $1.7 million round of equity financing. The funding was lead by Golden Seeds, a network of angel investors dedicated to investing in early stage companies founded and led by women, with participation of investors from a variety of other angel groups including Launchpad Venture Group, Walnut Ventures, Northeast Angels and Maine Angels.

With this round of funding, the company has now raised a total of $2.8 million to fund its mission to enable children to safely explore and learn independently from digital content. The new round will enable Playrific to accelerate its rapid growth and expand its sales, marketing and product development efforts. In addition, the company will accelerate its partnership program, building relationships with tablet manufacturers who want to offer an “out of the box” family experience and brands trying to engage with families digitally.

Playrific also announced today that Pat Feely and Angelique LeDoux have been appointed to the company’s board of directors. Feely, a 35-year veteran of the toy and video game industry, is the current chairman of the Toy Industry Foundation and was previously Chairman of the Toy Industry Association from 2000 to 2002. He served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Radica Games Ltd. until his retirement in October 2006, after the company was acquired by Mattel, Inc. LeDoux currently serves as President of Jade’s Toy Box, a New York City-based educational toy company. She is a Managing Director at Golden Seeds, and the Founder of the P.A.L. Workshop Series for Parents of Accelerated Learners. LeDoux also served as an editor at Time Magazine for Kids from 1999-2007.

“The timing couldn’t be better for us to accelerate our growth and bring our vision for the best kids experience on any screen to life,” said Beth Marcus, Playrific CEO. “Having Pat and Angelique join the board extends our reach immeasurably. With their backgrounds, and our technology and vision, we believe we can create an innovative and valuable company that benefits not only shareholders, but also families around the world.”

Playrific is the only service to allow children to safely explore a broad range of parent-and-educator-approved digital content: videos, online games, books, songs, drawing and coloring apps and more -- all on their own. Playrific’s team of educators, experts and algorithms find and curate content from across the web to match each child's interests. Each account is regularly refreshed based on a child's browsing history (likes and dislikes) as well as the viewing habits and trends of children with similar tastes and interests.

About Playrific:

Playrific is the only commercially available product that makes it simple to provide pre- and elementary-school aged children with digital content that reflects their likes and interests. Whether it's photos of baby animals, games that incorporate dinosaurs, or commercial-free episodes featuring favorite characters, Playrific locates, curates and offers personalized content that would otherwise take parents hours to assemble for their child. The free Playrific web app can be accessed from any web-enabled device – the company also offers an iOS app via the App Store, and expects to release its Android app commercially soon.

Learn more:
www.playrific.com
twitter.com/Playrific
facebook.com/Playrific