Estonian edtech company ALPA Kids, which currently operates in eight foreign markets, is growing so rapidly that the swift rise in its user base has attracted interest from several major companies. “We have already received multiple buyout proposals, even without raising venture capital,” said Kelly Lilles, ALPA Kids co-founder and CEO.

ALPA Kids creates educational games for children aged 3 to 8. The company stands out from other educational game developers by offering native language and localised learning materials. “Our games take into account the unique cultural characteristics of each country so that children feel at home in the learning environment and can better relate new knowledge to their surroundings,” explained Kelly Lilles.

This means that although the game mechanics of ALPA Kids’ digital educational games are the same in all export markets, the content is always adapted to suit the local curriculum, language, and culture. “For example, the flora and fauna are different in each export market application – in Ukraine, there are local flowers, birds, animals, and other details, while in India, they are entirely distinct,” Lilles illustrated.

“We have so much growth potential that we won’t sell the company lightly.”
Kelly Lilles, CEO of ALPA Kids

Local education experts, teachers, and schools always assist in assembling and validating the content. Fortunately, according to Lilles, early childhood education is quite universal globally: children learn the alphabet, numbers, shapes, and colours and also get to know their surroundings. Differences arise in the structure of the curriculum. “For example, the Hindi alphabet has almost twice as many letters as the Estonian alphabet, and their learning order differs. All of this was considered when creating the games,” Lilles emphasised.

Great international potential

ALPA Kids currently operates in eight foreign markets in addition to Estonia: United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, and India. India is currently the company’s furthest foreign market from Europe, which, according to Lilles, also has very high growth potential as the education sector there is rapidly digitalising.

“India is the world’s largest consumer of mobile internet, and media usage there is predominantly mobile-centric. Good education is highly valued, and the emphasis of the new education policy there is on providing education in the native language, in a situation where the country has 22 official regional languages,” said Lilles.

So, in India, they started by offering games in Hindi. Today, educational games are available in six other languages ​​used in India: Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati, Punjabi, Kannada, and English.

International entrepreneurs are targeting ALPA Kids’ business

Lilles mentioned that the company is doing very well. The user base is expanding so rapidly that it has attracted interest from several conglomerates, including large companies in India. “We have already received multiple buyout proposals, even without raising venture capital,” she shared.

“We have so much growth potential that we won’t sell the company lightly. As part of an exciting scientific collaboration, we have ventured into the field of language technology, where we are training speech recognition models for children who do not speak English using tens of thousands of audio recordings collected from our application,” said Lilles.

“We have already trained Estonian children’s speech recognition to be almost three times more accurate and continue with other languages we work with within the company. This opens up a whole new world of children’s spoken dialogue robots, offering opportunities for interactive language learning, oral knowledge acquisition, and even speech therapy. A sale would only be considered if it helps support ALPA’s ambitious growth and development goals,” she explained.

In addition to India, ALPA Kids is rapidly growing in all the markets it operates in, according to Lilles. “We see the fastest growth in Central and Eastern Europe, for example, in Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania. Sales to Lithuanian educational institutions started in September 2024 and have been profitable from the first month. In addition to home users in Estonia, we have captured the hearts of educational institutions, with over 400 Estonian educational institutions among ALPA’s clients,” said Lilles. Furthermore, the company’s team grew by 30% last year, doubled its monthly revenue and reached 2 million downloads.

The company is targeting the Indonesian market

When selecting new export markets, ALPA Kids evaluates countries’ GDP, population indicators, and download prices, comparing these with other metrics such as the competitive situation.

According to Lilles, ALPA Kids is targeting several Central European countries for expansion. “We also see significant potential in the Balkans. Additionally, we are continually exploring more exotic markets, with the remarkably diverse Indonesia standing out due to its linguistic richness and rapid growth,” Lilles remarked on potential new markets.

“We see the fastest growth in Central and Eastern Europe, for example, in Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania. Sales to Lithuanian educational institutions started in September 2024 and have been profitable from the first month.”
Kelly Lilles, CEO of ALPA Kids

To achieve growth and success in foreign markets, Lilles stated that understanding local conditions has been beneficial. “For instance, in the case of India, visiting the country was extremely helpful in gaining a better understanding of the market and culture,” she remarked. “India is a culture rich in context, and the business practices can be unfamiliar to us,” Lilles added. ALPA Kids has received, for example, support for entering the Indian market and establishing connections with local organisations from Vinod Basliyal, India’s export advisor at Enterprise Estonia.

According to Lilles, the company has a step-by-step strategy for entering export markets. This strategy initially focuses strongly on reaching home users (B2C). Once it has gained adequate recognition and visibility, the service will be available to educational institutions.

“The primary obstacle that edtech companies encounter is the sales strategy directed at educational institutions, which is characterised by lengthy sales cycles, a multi-tiered decision-making process, and a requirement for evidence-based credibility,” said Lilles. “Our strategy has demonstrated that it is quicker to achieve sustainability through home users (B2C), build awareness and trust, and subsequently take a decisive step towards B2B (business to business) and B2G (business to government),” she explained.

GOOD TO KNOW

ALPA Kids
Founded: 2018
Number of employees: 7 (2024)
Sector: educational technology, entertainment, gaming
Export markets: United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine and India
Evaluating the impact of games: ALPA Kids is very strong in scientific collaboration. Every year, several master’s theses are defended on the use and impact of the ALPA Kids platform, which has confirmed the service’s suitability as a teaching tool, its positive impact on teaching, and the potential for personalising learning. Kelly Lilles, the company’s CEO, is a doctoral student who uses the ALPA Kids dataset to study supporting grammar acquisition through digital games.
alpakids.com

This content is funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU

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