Reedah El-Saie, founder of EdTech Brainspark Games, secured funding from Dragons鈥� Den stars Sara Davies, Deborah Meaden and Touker Suleyman on last night鈥檚 episode.
The London-based entrepreneur, who pitched her multi-award-winning business, impressed some of the Dragons with her AI-powered, immersive educational mobile games platform.
Launched in 2019, the platform is designed to make learning enjoyable and accessible to all, including neurodiverse learners.聽
Its fun, curriculum-aligned games for ages 7 to 13 cover subjects like maths, English, science, climate, languages and art. El-Saie said her product condenses 12 weeks of learning into a few hours of gameplay.
El-Saie said she has secured several grants from Innovate UK as well as funding from 鈥榮uper angels鈥� in the gaming industry, while also putting 拢400k of her own cash into the business, which remained pre-revenue at the time of filming. She was seeking 拢10,000 for 1% of the company.
Peter Jones, who has a strong background in the education sector 鈥� advising government, for example 鈥� said the only way it could really succeed would be to become embedded in the National Curriculum.聽
鈥淚t鈥檚 difficult to make money from schools,鈥� Steven Bartlett agreed, questioning the business model.
However the other Dragons were more receptive. Sara Davies and Deborah Meaden quickly agreed to accept her offer, while Touker Suleyman played hardball by offering her the 拢10k for 5%, alongside a space in his own office.
However in a rare U-turn – Suleyman famously 鈥渄oesn鈥檛 get out of bed for 1%鈥� – he climbed down and accepted the 1% for 拢10k offer.
El-Saie agreed to give up a combined 3% of the business in return for a total 拢30,000 investment.
As she left the Den, Davies quipped: 鈥淭hat鈥檚 how to slay three Dragons!鈥�
Mum-of-three Reedah said: 鈥淏efore I headed into the studio, I watched every previous episode of the show and prepared responses for every possible question. I was surprised at how impressed all of the tycoons were.鈥�
Meaden told El-Saie that she has connections in the education industry 鈥� including the founder of MumsNet – which could help make the business a success.
鈥淒eborah Meaden was extremely enthusiastic, as was Sara Davies, who, as a fellow mother, connected with my vision of easing homework challenges for children and parents. Touker Suleyman鈥檚 expertise will be pivotal as we look towards launching a branded merchandise line. I couldn鈥檛 be happier with the result.鈥澛�
Brainspark Games specialises in culturally inclusive neurogames technology which aligns with the National Curriculum and connects virtual with real world action.聽
The company is also actively developing I/GCSE-level games as part of its ongoing research and innovation efforts.
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