Stanford Engineering Venture Fund has backed a series B round for Kano, which will use the money to start selling its computer kits in the US.
Kano, a UK-based producer of do-it-yourself computer kits, raised $28m in series B funding yesterday from a consortium that included the Stanford Engineering Venture Fund, an investment vehicle of Stanford University.
The round was co-led by Thames Trust and Breyer Capital, with participation from Index Ventures, LocalGlobe, Collaborative Fund, Triple Point Capital, Barclays and private investors Marc Benioff and John Makinson.
Kano manufactures computer kits that teaches users of all ages the principles of coding, progressing from block-based text to real text coding of common programming languages such as Python and JavaScript.
Users can also upload their code to a collaborative platform called Kano World. To date, users have created more than 200,000 applications and written a combined 33 million lines of code.
The money will go towards an expansion into the North American markets, where Kano will sell its product in more than 4,500 stores through partnerships with retailers such as Walmart, Best Buy and Target as well as e-commerce businesses such as Amazon.
Kano previously closed a $15m series A round in 2015 led by Breyer Capital, with contributions from Collaborative Fund and angel investor Jim O’Neill.
