Wheelings & Dealings: Sesame Street Gets More Tech with New Investment

By

There have been a lot of changes on Sesame Street over the last few years. A move to HBO might have been the biggest in recent memory, but now, it's putting some cash into a new venture arm focused on technology to help children. The new Sesame Ventures is set to join up with venture capital firms—like Collaborative Fund—to fund and drive the new Collab+Sesame Fund.

The Collab+Sesame Fund will pack $10 million into its operations, and given that Collaborative Fund was an early investor in both Lyft and Kickstarter, it should be the kind of fund with some forward-thinking aspirations. Sesame has long been known for forward-thinking, going as far back as 1966, when the group wondered if one of the biggest new technologies of the time, television, could be used to educate children. The result was Sesame Street, and most everyone reading this knows how that turned out.

With a new major advance developing in the Internet—it's actually starting to cut into television time as far as leisure activities go—that's making for still other changes. Two-thirds of Sesame Street's viewership comes from an on-demand source, like the PBS Kids Video App,  HBO GO, or even its YouTube channel. That's a practical illustration of a changing landscape, and one that Sesame Ventures will likely take on in the months to come.

Six key factors will join in the investing, including tools specifically geared toward educators, issues of food, health and wellness, social and emotional development, family development, and issues relating to education and media. The operation won't just be signing checks, either, but offering some mentoring help from current Sesame executives, as well as access to Sesame characters for branding. That won't be a requirement—it's not looking to extend its branding, reports note—but it will be an option, a way for products to more readily connect with target markets.

It's clear there will be no shortage of possibilities here. A fitness tracker, a new kind of menu planner, toys and games to focus on learning, all with that Sesame brand, could all be possible hits in the field. There's also the outside chances of unexpected wins, completely new products that focus on child development that we haven't even heard of yet, the product lines still limited to whiteboard drawings in garages and spare rooms. One of the biggest impediments to launching new products is a lack of resources, and the Sesame Ventures operation could take a lot of that problem off the field.

There's a lot of room in the market for new products, even potentially, whole new markets to be established from products not yet known. Sesame Ventures might well be a major force in such an undertaking, and that could mean the coming years will be full of new advancements making children's lives better. By extension, that will only improve our own as well.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. [Free eNews Subscription]

Contributing Writer

SHARE THIS ARTICLE
Related Articles

Tech Innovation in iGaming

By: Contributing Writer    11/29/2023

iGaming is one of the fastest growing industries on the internet. For those who may not be aware, iGaming refers to online casinos, online slots, poke…

Read More

8 Underrated Features of Your Mobile Device You Probably Didn't Know About

By: Contributing Writer    11/21/2023

It is easy to get lost in all the new phone releases when multiple happen yearly. Consequently, most new functions go unnoticed because people do not …

Read More

Navigating the Launch: A Step-by-Step Guide to Bringing Your Product to Market

By: Contributing Writer    11/15/2023

Embarking on the journey to bring a new product into the marketplace is an exhilarating adventure that blends the thrill of innovation with the meticu…

Read More

Running MySQL on AWS: Step by Step

By: Contributing Writer    11/15/2023

MySQL on AWS is the deployment of the MySQL database system on Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud platform. MySQL is one of the most popular open-source …

Read More

4 Easy Responsive Image Techniques

By: Contributing Writer    11/15/2023

Responsive images are a fundamental component in responsive web design. They adapt to the size of the user's screen, delivering the best user experien…

Read More