New York-based education startup LittleBits, known for investing the electronic building blocks, has been acquired by Sphero, one of the leading robotics and educational STEAM companies.
The company LittleBits was launched in 2011, by Lebanese entrepreneur Ayah Bdeir. It’s worth noting that Wamda Capital was an early investor in the company.
According to a statement made by the company, LittleBits and Spehro are joining forces to become the #1 STEAM and coding solution for every classroom, living room, and after school program around the world. Ayah has also mentioned in a Medium post, that with the acquisition, she’s leaving the company.
“Today is my last day at LittleBits. I leave LittleBits in incredibly talented hands. LittleBits will now have a home in Sphero, the leading educational technology company that shares our mission of inspiring the creators of tomorrow,” she states.
In the last nine years, LittleBits and Sphero have created new categories of hands-on-learning tools to improve STEAM education. According to the statement, the two companies have collectively reached over six million students and 65,000 teachers across 35,000 schools globally, where they sold more than $500 million in Sphero robots and LittleBits kits.
Commenting on the acquisition, Ayah says: ““When I studied engineering, it was top-down, test-based. I hated it and wanted to quit every semester. Then I got exposed to the pedagogy of learning through play and my life changed; no one could peel me away from learning, inventing, creating. Together, littleBits and Sphero are now bringing this experience to kids everywhere.”
Paul Berberian, Sphero’s CEO, said, “Sphero and littleBits are on a mission to make hands-on learning fun and memorable. Together, we’re able to make an even greater impact by delivering the best possible solution — whether it is programming a robot to solve a maze or building an electronic music synthesizer. There are infinite learning possibilities — and they’re all fun.”