Our investment in Big Fat Phoenix

Have you ever wondered why your child cannot remember the 118 elements of the periodic table but can remember all 896 fictional species of Pokémon monsters?

K-12 online education in India has largely been focused on digitising school curriculum to make it engaging and interactive with high quality content and well-trained teachers making this pedagogy accessible to children otherwise subjected to rote learning, offline, in classrooms. Star teachers together with great content means students look forward to, rather than fear classes, resulting in higher engagement and therefore better learning outcomes (i.e. grades). Parents and students are happy. However, when it comes to screen time outside online classes, parents are highly conflicted on the extent and quality of screen time their children should be exposed to. With mainstream education also moving online, this has become even more debated across households, globally.

What would make screen time not only fun for kids but also acceptable to parents?

Big Fat Phoenix aims to be an effective and reputable platform that ensures continuity of learning through games, in a fun and engaging manner.

Considering that the average age by which a child is given a smartphone/tablet is now 10-11 years old, gaming could move from an area of conflict to an area of comfort and collaboration for kids and parents alike. And no, we do not mean a gun play themed test or racing themed quiz or even parenting a Tamagochi.

What is Big Fat Phoenix (BFP) setting out to achieve?

BFP's ambition is to build on that most appealing quality of a game (and often elusive in reality) - the feeling of being in control, amidst the safety and security of digital refuge and lead that to influence decision making and build proficiency. For example, while building games with task oriented progression, the intent is not to have a right or wrong, binary, outcome for every task and rather allow kids to make a series of decisions during game play, whose patterns would be scientifically assessed (in BFP's case using CASEL's widely used socio-emotional framework) to determine what the child's personality traits are - are you empathetic, frugal, generous, resilient and so on. By offering gamified content that is not in the form of a quiz or test children don't perceive it as (yet another) online test or class and parents are assured that screen time is healthy. Further, for parents who prefer to monitor screen time, they get separate and direct access to real time reports on the child's interests, engagement levels and decision-making pattern

The ambition is to use games to help children understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions. By taking on personas of global leaders, professional athletes, CEOs and prominent positive role models and collaborating with friends through a social, multi-gamer approach, BFP is setting out to play a part in healthy screen time for children.

Would parents pay for games? Happily, we believe.

Consumer spending on education was already on the rise in India, touching $68bn in 2018. With COVID tailwinds, the K-12, ed-tech, segment alone is pegged at a $1.5bn market opportunity.

Separately, India has already demonstrated an ability to pay for games, generating an estimated $1.5bn in gaming revenue in 2019. With smartphone games already being 36% (Largest and fastest growing segment) of the gaming market, the K-12+gaming sector is ripe for disruption.

The Founding Team

BFP was founded by Anand and Vish over 15 months ago. The camaraderie between them is evident having been school mates. They bring formidable and distinct skill sets to BFP. Anand is an industry veteran and career game designer (BYJUs/Zynga/Hike) with over 20 years of game launch and live-ops experience having created games that have scaled to over 50m users. Vish has over two decades of experiences managing large teams and global P&Ls across IT services and software and more importantly, is experienced in sales having taken products global, something BFP will set out to do in the coming years as they sell beyond India. They are prolific recruiters too, having already attracted top industry talent as part of the founding team comprising educators and game developers from Sesame Street, Disney, BYJUs and Zynga.

We endorse their belief that all games are, without exception, teaching tools. Play is the natural way that all species learn, and humans are no exception. Used responsibly and intelligently, game design can be used to deliver effective and engaging learning for all age groups. 

We are excited to partner them as they set out to build a responsible, global, kids gaming company out of India! Big Fat Phoenix joins a distinguished set of ed-tech companies in the WBV portfolio including Unacademy and DoubtNut.