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Play Piper is a technology company.
Play Piper develops educational technology blending physical construction with digital learning for STEM. Its Piper Computer Kit guides users in building a functional computer. Piper Make offers a browser-based platform for physical computing, employing drag-and-drop Python programming on Raspberry Pi Pico, simplifying engineering and coding through interactive projects.
Mark Pavlyukovskyy, Joel Sadler, and Shree Bose founded Play Piper in 2014. Their insight was to create hands-on, engaging technology education, providing practical tools to deepen computing understanding. Co-founder Shree Bose, a Google Global Science Fair winner, shaped the company's innovative pedagogical approach.
Play Piper's products serve students aged 8-14 and educators needing STEAM curricula. The company aims to foster critical thinking and problem-solving, preparing learners for a tech-driven future. Its vision is to inspire active creation and invention, transforming young minds beyond passive consumption.
Play Piper has raised $10.0M across 2 funding rounds.
Play Piper has raised $10.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Play Piper (also known as Piper or Piper Learning, Inc.) is a San Francisco-based EdTech company founded in 2014 that builds hands-on STEM/STEAM kits blending physical computing with virtual learning experiences. It serves children ages 8-14, educators in over 500 school districts, parents, after-school programs, and community initiatives, solving the problem of making coding, engineering, and computational thinking accessible and engaging through DIY computer kits like the Piper Computer Kit and Piper Make—without requiring prior experience or screens for initial assembly.[1][2][3][4]
The company has raised $9.7M in funding, operates with 1-10 employees, and generates under $1M in annual revenue while achieving milestones like becoming the #1 STEM toy on Amazon and partnerships with Google and Raspberry Pi. Its products emphasize project-based learning (PBL), social-emotional learning (SEL), and career-connected STEAM missions, fostering confidence in solving real-world problems via Raspberry Pi-based hardware and drag-and-drop coding platforms.[1][2][3][5]
Play Piper was co-founded in 2014 by Shree (a Google Science Fair winner, Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, Harvard and Duke graduate) and others, driven by Shree's childhood passion for hands-on science to instill similar confidence in kids. The idea emerged from creating fun, effective tech-learning experiences, starting with the Piper Computer Kit—a wooden puzzle-like DIY computer that launched via a successful Kickstarter campaign in December 2015.[2][3][4]
Early traction included seed funding in April 2016, first lesson plans in August 2016, and topping Amazon's STEM toy charts by November 2017. Key team members like Matt Matz (Google Blockly expert in product development) and Kris Rockwell (20+ years in learning tech and nonprofits) joined to evolve the focus from kits to comprehensive ecosystems, including Piper Make in 2021 with Google and Raspberry Pi partnerships.[1][3]
Play Piper rides the surging demand for hands-on STEAM education amid global pushes for computational literacy, exacerbated by post-pandemic hybrid learning and maker movement growth. Its timing aligns with Raspberry Pi's affordability and Google's edtech initiatives, capitalizing on market forces like rising EdTech investments (Piper's $9.7M funding) and parental focus on screen-free, skill-building play.[1][2][3][5]
By influencing ecosystems through free resources, school district adoption, and innovations like sustainable coding, Piper democratizes physical computing—preparing kids for AI/hardware careers while countering passive digital consumption trends.[3][4]
Piper is poised to expand Piper Make kits and classroom bundles, leveraging partnerships for global reach and new missions tied to emerging trends like AI ethics and green tech. As STEAM mandates grow in curricula and home edtech booms, its hardware-software blend could scale via subscriptions or enterprise tools, evolving influence from niche kits to mainstream confidence-builders for tomorrow's inventors—echoing its founding vision of fun, effective tech learning at scale.[2][3][4]
Play Piper has raised $10.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Play Piper's investors include Owl Ventures, Altair Capital Management, Chaac Ventures, Pareto Holdings, Reach Capital, Charles Huang, Masha Bucher, Stanford, 20VC, Anti fund, Astir Ventures, Banana Capital.
Play Piper has raised $10.0M across 2 funding rounds. Most recently, it raised $8.0M Series A in September 2017.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 1, 2017 | $8.0M Series A | Owl Ventures | Altair Capital Management, Chaac Ventures, Pareto Holdings, Reach Capital, Charles Huang, Masha Bucher, Stanford |
| Jun 1, 2016 | $2.0M Seed | 20VC, Altair Capital Management, Anti fund, Astir Ventures, Banana Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Buckley Ventures, Chaac Ventures, Dragonfly Capital Partners, Foundation Capital, Founders Fund, Insight Partners, Kepler Operator’s Fund, Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Long Journey Ventures, Pareto Holdings, Reach Capital, Josh Mohrer, Kunal Shah, Louis Beryl, Scott Banister, Shervin Pishevar, Jaan Tallinn, Jay Silver, Dave McClure, FoundersXFund, Mayra Ceja |