The Montreal web platform moozoom, which offers socio-emotional support in the form of interactive video to elementary school students, has just raised $5 million to continue its expansion in Canada and the United States. The company hopes to help more young people who have to deal with mental health problems ranging from anxiety to hyperactivity.
Moozoom says it relies on its platform created in the spring of 2020, which reaches more than 135,000 young users from just over 1,000 schools in North America. As the service was first created in French, its presence is stronger in French schools in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada. But its English-speaking module has known since its launch last September, a popularity that Jean-Philippe Turgeon, its founder, considers similar.
Its growth strategy has convinced investors, including Amplify Capital, Telus and Fondaction, who will help it accelerate its growth across the continent thanks to this $5 million round.
English market
“In Quebec, we have about 40% of the market,” says Jean-Philippe Turgeon. “We are starting from zero in the United States, but our progression is similar to the same stage of growth. At the moment, each month represents for us what we had anticipated on a year of growth. »
The moozoom platform is notably accessible via Smart Board interactive whiteboards from Foxconn, which can already be found in the classrooms of many schools in Canada and the United States. Moozoom has also more recently agreed with the Educational Service Center of Western Reserve in Ohio to extend its service to all schools in the state. This agreement is a model that the company hopes to replicate elsewhere in the United States, explains Jean-Philippe Turgeon.
Moozom has big ambitions. The start-up looks at the trajectory taken by another Montreal educational technology company, the Paper company, and hopes to emulate its progress. Paper was launched in 2019 and is now worth nearly US$1.5 billion. The company offers distance learning support to elementary and high school students, mainly in the United States.
“Our growth strategy is largely based on theirs,” explains Jean-Philippe Turgeon. “Our priority this year is to launch the service in Ohio and other states. We are targeting revenues of $3-4 million in 2022, which remains low relative to our longer-term goals. »
Understand your emotions
Himself diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Jean-Philippe Turgeon assures that his platform has an instant positive effect on the behavior of young people who use it, once they are confronted with sticky situations at school.
“We are really responding to the problem of the lack of accessibility of socio-emotional learning,” he says. There is not a human on Earth who will say that helping young people with their emotions is not important, but when it comes time to do so, it gets complicated. We therefore wanted to help young people find solutions on their own using interactive videos. This is the best way to retain concepts and then reproduce them in real life. »
With its services, moozoom says it contributes to solving the lack of time of teachers and special education technicians, who are often left to their own devices in their schools. During a normal school year, six themes can thus be offered to pupils. They touch on delicate subjects such as the feeling of rejection, change, friendship, resilience, motivation, differences and anxiety.
“We present a problem situation and we specify what skills we want to develop so that the young person can act correctly,” says Jean-Philippe Turgeon. Without being able to clearly quantify the results, the entrepreneur ensures that the effect of the presence of moozoom in a class is felt quickly, in less than two months.
“Rapid positive impact”
“What we hear is that there is a positive and rapid impact on classroom management. Teachers appreciate our tools. Students find solutions to various problems and avoid visiting the special education technician. Others are suddenly able to talk better about their feelings to their friends. »
Currently, in Canada, it is estimated that 20% of young people aged 6 to 11 are affected by a mental health disorder and that 80% of them do not receive the appropriate treatment. Moozoom is simply trying to correct this situation, says its founder.
“I am a parent who created moozoom,” continues Mr. Turgeon. “As parents, we are not really able to help our young people manage their socio-emotional behaviors in this way. The teacher also has a hard time doing it. We developed the platform to integrate it into school as another form of learning, because that’s where young people spend the most time learning and where they can more easily put it into practice. »