Top 21 Startups that help kids learn to read

Updated: Nov 20, 2025
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These startups develop phonics apps, interactive storybooks, reading comprehension tools, vocabulary-building games, speech recognition software, etc.
1
Beanstack
Country: USA | Funding: $1.5M
Beanstack helps educators and librarians run reading challenges that engage more people and provide better data.
2
DreamBox Learning
Country: USA | Funding: $175.6M
DreamBox Learning offers elementary mathematics education through its intelligent adaptive learning platform.
3
Amira Learning
Country: USA | Funding: $40.3M
Amira Learning offers an intelligent reading assistant that listens, assesses, and tutors.
4
Osmo
Country: USA | Funding: $32.5M
Osmo is a gaming company built around its proprietary Reflective Artificial Intelligence. It aims to create a new play movement to unleash the boundaries of the screen with the launch of its inaugural product, Osmo. Osmo expands the playing field and engages creative thinking and social interaction, allowing any object - pen and paper, you name it - to interact with the digital device.
5
Ello
Country: USA | Funding: $15.5M
Ello is an app-based reading coach that works with real books.
6
Lexplore
Country: Sweden | Funding: $12.7M
The all-in-one service for systematic reading development. Lexplore offers assessment, insights and development in one place to support systematic reading development.
7
Shoelace Learning
Country: Canada | Funding: $7M
Shoelace Learning is the create games that instil a love for reading.
8
Yuna
Country: Brazil | Funding: $1.6M
Yuna develops an AI-driven platform that provides personalized, interactive, and free children's stories.
9
ReadAskChat
Country: USA | Funding: $1.1M
ReadAskChat provides parents, caregivers, and teachers the guidance they need to lay a strong foundation for reading and a love of learning.
10
Lola Panda
Country: Finland | Funding: €600K
BeiZ is a Beijing-based game studio engaged in the development of educational games for adults and children.
Nadia Neveu
Editor: Nadia Neveu
Nadia Neveu is a senior editor for EdTechStartups. She is a writer covering early childhood education, K-12, higher education and edtech business, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, BBC and Vice. Nadia holds a degree in mass communication from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Nadia is also a student in the Master of Science in Data Analytics program at the University of Houston-Downtown. Nadia seeks to uplift all teachers in the work that they do and support them as leaders and agents of change. You can contact Nadia at neveu(at)edtechstartups(dot)com