The Caper app offers parents original stories known as ‘missions’ designed to be played by the family together outdoors, with a number of missions suitable for inside the home. Over 4,000 families downloaded the beta version of Caper during the lockdown period, finding the app a welcome source of fun, creativity, and entertainment.
Caper’s ‘missions’ keep screentime to a minimum and have a real-world focus interwoven into the narrative of each adventure, helping reconnect families to each other and the world around them through engaging characters and exciting activities. Caper uses the latest smartphone facial capture technology to create fully-animated talking characters, disrupting the idea of game-play as a sedentary, screen-based activity that children play in isolation.
This funding round coincides with the release of Caper’s initial series of eight ‘missions’ starring space adventurer, Captain Redtail, and his robot sidekick, TikTik. Additional new series with entirely new characters will be released in the coming months.
“Our vision is for Caper to become the home of original content that enables families to spend quality, active time together." - Ben Geliher, CEO and Co-Founder of Caper
Even before COVID-19, the damaging effects of sedentary lifestyles and a lack of connection to nature on children were gaining public awareness. As lockdown eases, new research indicates that there is a resurgence of enthusiasm for nature alongside an understanding that a whole generation of children could suffer heightened mental health challenges as they process their experiences of the pandemic.
Many parents have been juggling their working lives with educating their children at home, and now, uncertainty around travel plans means that the summer of 2020 will, in many cases, be spent closer to home.
“Caper is a very exciting new startup – not only to inspire kids and families to play outdoors and new places, but also for them to engage socially and learn about their environment. LEGO Ventures are proud to be supporting them as they start on their journey to drive a new paradigm in the intersection between digital and physical play.” - Rob Lowe, Head of Marketing and Value Creation at LEGO Ventures
“We know that screen time is an issue for many families. With so many apps out there designed to keep you scrolling and glued to the screen, I'm really excited by a product that empowers families to have rich meaningful experiences together. Beyond the social impact, the vision for this business is to be a platform that enables any creator to build their own interactive, shared experiences. This is a truly global market opportunity." - Paul Egan, Chief Studio Officer, Founders Factory
Caper aims to be the world’s leading interactive entertainment company that brings parents and children closer to each other and the world around them. Founded in 2020 by CEO Ben Geliher (If You Can, Mind Candy), Creative Director Graham Denney, (If You Can, Nintendo, BBC) and CMO Sara Perkins (Pearson, Harper Collins, Mills & Boon, Disney).
Caper is currently available for free on iOS and Android. From late August 2020, the first episode of Captain Redtail will continue to be available for free, with the rest of the series (7 episodes and bonus extras) available for one-off bundle purchase at £4.99.
