KaDa Story Upgrades Brand to Enter Global Children's Reading Market, Secures A+ Round Financing from Trustbridge

BEIJING, Nov. 9, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- On October 30th, KaDa Story held a brand upgrading conference in Beijing where they revealed the update of the company's Chinese name and their new slogan, "We've Got All The Good Stories". Additionally, KaDa Story has secured nearly RMB100 million of A+ round financing, with Trustbridge as the first investor, 37 Interactive Entertainment following suit, and Tomorrow Advancing Life increasing its holdings.

Sally Xie, CEO and founder of KaDa Story, said, "KaDa Story is a 'seed project' that seeks to enrich children's minds with quality content. We hope that by reading good stories, children can acquire a great deal of knowledge, and more importantly, cultivate the correct way of thinking to lay a foundation for proper values and a positive outlook on life as they grow up. Focusing on 'selecting the world's good stories', KaDa Story has upgraded its brand with the objective of offering "the cream of the story crop" that are educational as well as entertaining. KaDa Story believes that only the approach of 'teaching through lively activities' can make children happy and their parents satisfied."

A globalizing platform and an international new brand

Launched in 2015, KaDa Story is a leading children's digital content platform in China specializing in personalized reading services for children aged 0-9. It also provides tailor-made services and one-stop children's content solutions for publishers, kindergartens, public libraries, smart terminals, and other enterprises.

KaDa Story has reached 162 countries and regions, including developed countries such as the US, Japan, France, Australia, as well as developing countries like Sierra Leone, Malawi and Niger. Meanwhile, KaDa Story has established a full-fledged content supply chain. Among its 200-plus partners, there are more than 160 leading children's content agencies in China, such as China Children's Press & Publication Group，Daylight Publishing House, Jieli Publishing House, Wanda Kidsplace, and Alpha Group. It has also established partnerships with more than 40 well-known international children's content agencies including The Walt Disney Company, Groupe Bayard, Oxford University Press. With more worldwide content partners and users, the company's Chinese name was updated with the intent of making inroads into the global children's content market.

Regarding this round of investment, leading investor Trustbridge said that it has always been interested in the development of prospective education and cultural businesses. And as the market of children's digital content exhibits greater vitality, KaDa Story has stood out from the crowd with its rich content, quality educational system, and technical strength, thus displaying powerful cultural appeal and brand influence. Trustbridge has full confidence in and is willing to partner with KaDa Story to unearth and develop more quality children's content, to push forward the development of an innovative children's content industry in China and provide abundant intellectual nourishment for the world's children and their families. After this round of financing, KaDa Story will engage in closer cooperation with multiple prominent children's publishing houses invested in by Trustbridge, such as Everafter Books, Baby Cube, Bayard Bridge Books, and Holiday House, aiming to bring quality content to children.

Partnership with China Literature, three aspects to guarantee good storytelling

In order to offer carefully selected stories that are both educational and entertaining, after the brand upgrading, KaDa Story will take further steps to make improvement on three aspects - content, user experience, and distribution channels.

The first is content upgrading. To make full use of the existing market, KaDa Story chooses content in line with the underlying logic of children's early reading. It mainly explores original content in China and selects good stories from a worldwide pool. Using a scientific content assessment system, KaDa Story selects and presents top-quality audio picture books and audio stories to children according to data such as book clicking rates, reading completion rates, and repeated reading rates. In terms of market expansion, KaDa Story will work with China Literature Limited, which is also invested in by Trustbridge, to better explore the children's industry. China Literature will leverage its rich experience in content creation (such as exploring content resources and creating best-sellers) and content monetizing (such as user acquisition, channel distribution, and derivative industrial chain development). The two companies plan to build a sustainable platform for creators of children's content where they can acquire readers and profits, as well as inspiration for creation. They will also work closely with home content agencies to explore new paths for original content creation.

The second is user experience upgrading. KaDa Story has been a pioneer in introducing a dual-engine content recommendation mechanism, namely, recommending content in line with the underlying logic of children's early education, and then making recommendations according to children's interests and reading habits. The former mainly meets parents' educational needs and the latter meets children's entertainment needs. Such a mechanism will offer children a personalized experience while focusing on education, the essence of children's content. Meanwhile, KaDa Story continues to improve its reward system through means such as the KaDa medal, KaDa coins, and KaDa exchange cards, seeking to stimulate children's reading interests in an all-around way.

The third is distribution channel upgrading. Based on its maturing primary family consumer service, KaDa Story will make great efforts in providing abundant quality reading materials to kindergartens, primary schools, and public libraries to expand its business market. Meanwhile, KaDa Story provides one-stop content solutions for various intelligent hardware products, nearly 100 of which have been embedded with KaDa Story's quality content, including intelligent sound boxes of the internet giants such as Baidu Xiaodu,  Tmall Genie, JD DingDong Smart Speaker, internet robot celebrities such as Rokid, Keeko, as well as XGIMI projector, OKII, Liebao, and Xiaomi. What's more, Dragonfly FM, Xitong Sports, MMBang, QBB, and other internet platforms have also partnered with KaDa Story. In the future, good stories from KaDa Story will be seen on various screens, large or small.

With the flourishing of children's content, there is a trend toward refined and personalized reading needs of users. Li Yifei, founder of 37 Interactive Entertainment, another investor of KaDa Story, agrees with the upgrading strategies of KaDa Story, "KaDa Story spreads the concept of enjoyable reading among children, enabling them to learn and grow up in a relaxed atmosphere. Such a concept echoes the corporate values of 37 Interactive Entertainment, "Fun Creates the World." 37 Interactive Entertainment will cooperate closely with KaDa Story in all aspects, working to explore more learning scenarios and more efficient learning methods. The objective is to bring more fun to our children's learning experience and create a better world for them."

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