Wizenoze, the Dutch startup which curates age-appropriate and understandable content for children, has announced it has just closed a funding round for just over £1m to fuel its bid for the UK market.

The cash injection, worth €1.3m, brings the total raised by the company to €3.1m. The biggest contributor in the latest round was the Dutch government with a loan from its Innovation Credit fund, with the remainder made up by informal investors. Currently, more than 80% of the Dutch primary schools have access to Wizenoze’s technology.

WizeNoze will use this funding to launch a new safe search solution for children in the UK.

In announcing the move, Diane Janknegt, founder and CEO of WizeNoze said:

“This will help hugely with our push into the UK schools market. We think there is a real need to create a new method for safeguarded internet search. That’s why we have built a vast repository of curated content collection, so that children’s online work will not be disturbed or distracted by the commercial messages, or worse, by inappropriate or disturbing content”.

Based in Amsterdam, WizeNoze aims to make information on the internet easier to find and understand for children, by building technology which curates and delivers reliable, appropriate and age relevant content at a child’s specific reading level.  

The company has also recently announced a partnership with the London Grid for Learning (LGfL) for a white label search solution for schools. In announcing that link, John Jackson, CEO of the LGfL said:

“Giving children access to safe, relevant and suitable content is a need expressed by many schools… Instead of filtering out all inappropriate content, Wizenoze will help us give them access to reliable information, matching the individual reading level of a child”.