When Jean-Philippe Turgeon’s young daughter started struggling with life-threatening mental health challenges, he did what every parent would do: everything he possibly could.
From psychologists to psychiatrists, nothing seemed to work – and schools were vastly under-equipped in terms of educator preparedness, student resources and awareness. There seemed to be no perfect fit to support the challenges the Turgeon family was experiencing: school programs were too hard to implement for educators or not accessible for real children.
The Mental Health Crisis
What Montreal-based Turgeon and family faced was far from a singularity in North America. Almost 17% of young people aged 6-17 in the U.S. have experienced a mental health problem – a number which accounts for 7.7 million kids in the U.S. alone. 3 out of 4 of them aren’t getting the help they need.
What the numbers unearth is bleak: across the continent, students are facing the biggest mental health crisis of the century.
At every turn, Turgeon was confronted by the same questions: Why did so many kids face the same barriers? How come kids didn’t receive mental health support at school? If well-being problems affected so many, why didn’t we teach kids how to better manage their emotions just like we taught languages or math?
As he and his family witnessed the devastating effects of mental illness first-hand, Turgeon was determined to make sure that no other family would have to face what they did ever again.
Social & Emotional Learning Made Easy
Enter moozoom.
A mission-driven technology company, moozoom solves a complex foundational problem in society: they simplify social and emotional learning for children. The key to improving mental health wellbeing in children begins by resolving two barriers: engagement and utilization.
In May 2020, the proprietary platform was launched to transform elementary school classrooms across the province, the nation and eventually, the continent. The beauty of moozoom lies in a two-fold value proposition: the platform’s content and design captivate student engagement by means of storytelling and accessibility of use while simultaneously decreasing the workloads of educators. One classroom at a time, moozoom reduces the bottleneck between administrators, educators and the students who benefit.
Accessibility & Engagement
The digital environment plunges students into a fictional universe where other children their age are confronted with real-world situations ranging from emotional regulation in high-tension moments to handling rejection to overcome bullying and beyond.
There, students get to choose how they would feel and react if they were placed in the shoes of the characters, effectively building real-life skills by coming face to face with real-world problems. From there, teachers are able to prompt in-class discussions thanks to worksheets provided by the platform itself.
“Sparking a dialogue in an accessible way is in itself an enormous advancement in mental health prevention,” Turgeon said, as he explained the in-class component of moozoom. “Both educators and children quite simply have not been addressing these topics in a way that makes an impact in classrooms.”
In just 30 minutes per week, students are able to adapt the skills they need to better handle social and emotional situations. When implemented at a school-wide level, Turgeon said the change is quick and palpable.
As a turnkey solution for teachers that is engaging and easy to implement, moozoom enables students to understand their mental health, improve their relationships, increase their self-esteem and live a happier life.
Growth
Today, with 30 employees, moozoom has been implemented in 800+ licensed schools across Canada with 16,000 educators and 100,000 active students.
Built with 320,000 dynamic student activities available, the platform is surpassing academic results by transforming student potential, reducing risky behaviour and improving mental health.
Moozoom’s latest Seed round announcement, totalling $5M CAD, is led by Amplify Ventures, TELUS Ventures and Fondaction, with participation from Formentera Capital. Funding from this round will help scale sales and revenue, penetrate the US market, and add new content and features to the platform. Funds will also help solidify hiring plans, with goals to double headcount by the end of 2022.
“We are very fortunate to have people believe in what we do,” Turgeon said. “What I really love about Formentera Capital is that they are investing in social impact more than a return on investment.”
From Turgeon’s perspective, the decision to bring on Formentera Capital as part of the moozoom investment team was an easy one.
“They are true entrepreneurs themselves,” said Turgeon. “They know what it’s like to build a company from the ground-up, and their insight is invaluable to our mission.”
What started as filling a need for Turgeon and his daughter became a transformative business model that’s changing the way elementary school students approach their emotions.
As the future of SEL, moozoom has officially taken one step closer to achieving its goal: to help every child across the globe by opening the dialogue on mental well-being.
Formentera Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in tech-enabled companies that are good for the world.
