By Sarah Kahn
Staff Writer
Multiple private investors recently invested five million dollars in EQtainment in support of the emotional intelligence for young children.
Chief Creative Officer of EQtainment Sofia Dickens founded the company. It began when Dickens was a Harvard student and became intrigued by emotional intelligence and its importance for children. She spent several years testing and developing the brand’s board game. After creating a prototype, she launched a kickstarter campaign that launched EQtainment in late 2014.
“Sofia studied under Daniel Goleman, who some say is the father of emotional intelligence,” CEO of EQtainment, Erica Buxton, said. “She became obsessed with learning more about the topic. When she became pregnant with her first child, she looked for tools to teach emotional intelligence and couldn’t find anything that was simple and easy to use.”
The five million was a result of angel investors [private investors], Buxton said. A large portion of the five million will be invested in EQtainment’s new app, “Q Wunder.”
Photos: EQtainment had a photo shoot to advertise their products on their website.
“Without this funding we wouldn’t be able to provide a complete offering of our products,” Dickens said. “The funding has really made content production possible.
Q Wunder is a resource for both parents and children on all aspects of emotional intelligence, Buxton says. The subscription based app features a variety of entertaining and educational aspects such as a kids show, games, and music videos.
“We wanted to provide a holistic set of tools and resources,” Buxton said. “[The features of the app] would be a great compliment to all of our products.”
EQtainment plans to expands its content and make Q Wunder a platform for social and emotional learning, Buxton said. For 2017, the company is also considering expanding on more bases, such as international.
Link: This is the EQtainment website, where they sell and advertise their products.
“In the future we would like to look expanding in different age demographics,” Buxton said. “We would like to explore various platforms of technology to aid in teaching social and emotional skills.”
EQtainment also plans on releasing new products and broadening their company, according to Buxton. There are new plans for advertising being launched in upcoming fall, such as business partnerships.
Link: Kickstarter Campaign for EQtainment.
“We have some very exciting partnerships that unfortunately I can’t talk about yet,” Buxton said. “It’s going to increase our brand awareness.”
EQtainment’s objective focuses on educating children about recognizing social cues, self confidence, learning to deal with obstacles and managing relationships. The company developed one of the first tools that aids parents in identifying and improving their child’s social skills.
“Most schools don’t teach social and emotional skills, and the ones that do have very limited tools to do so,” Dickens said. “I believe our products give parents tools to help build social and emotional skills in their children. Emotional intelligence has a higher correlation to life success so I do think it should be a priority.”
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