Listen to this articleCircle Media provides parents with the tools to control the content streamed through home WiFi and keep kids away from harmful content. Their recent release of Circle Go offers extended parental controls even on 4GLTE and other WiFi networks. To find our more about their platform we sat down with Jelani Memory, the Founder of Circle Media Inc.:
Q: You’ve recently announced $10m in Series A Round; could you tell us something more?
A: Sure. Closing our Series A Round of funding is really about being able to scale at a faster pace, reach more markets, and deliver the best product in the world to families. Relay Ventures, who led our funding round, is the perfect partner to help us do that, having been an early investor in Ecobee.
For most hardware/software companies, they need a major funding round like this just to get to where we already are. One of the things we kept hearing from VC after VC is that they had never seen anyone do so much with so little. We have a tremendous team and are executing in a really tough space. We’re really excited for what’s ahead.
Q: How would you describe Circle Media in your own words?
A: When we started Circle Media it was really around one singular mission, and that was to fundamentally change how families connected. Now that’s a bit of play on words, because we wanted to change how they connected both with each other, and online. Devices and the internet play such an important role in how the family interacts and the media, stories, and content it has access to. We’ve grown from a couple people to over 30 and have still kept that mission in tact. I work with a bunch of really talented and smart people, folks who are all master craftsmen (and women) in their own right in their respective areas.
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Q: Could you tell us something more about Circle Go?
A: Circle Go was an inevitable evolution of managing all the devices in the home for the family. Once you’ve covered the home WiFi, you then need to look beyond the home. In the US the average age a kid gets a smart phone is 8 years old. So allowing parents to cover other WiFi networks and 4GLTE data was really important. So Circle Go let’s you do just that. It extends all of those features that you have on your home WiFi with Circle, to anywhere else that mobile device goes. It’s really something special and we’re the only one’s in the world who have an in home and out of home solution in this space.
Q: What are the main benefits of using your platform?
A: Of the many benefits to using the Circle platform, like keeping kids away from harmful content, or eliminating kids being online after bed time, the most significant is it’s impact on how parents and kids relate to each other. In a survey we recently sent out we asked what was the one thing that Circle has done to impact the family the most. We kept getting the same answer again and again, “we don’t have to argue with our kids anymore.” Now that’s pretty profound. Circle is so much more than screen time management for the family, it’s really about impacting communication and relationship in the family.
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Q: What are your plans for the future?
A: We have lots of plans for the future and we can’t even mention half of them. What we can say is that we’ll be expanding internationally aggressively over the next couple years. Additionally we’ll be introducing new products into the market specifically designed around how families communicate, connect, and interact. You’ll just have to wait and see.
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