Recently Funded: K-ID’s Kieran Donovan on why finding like-minded investors makes all the difference

K-ID provides two portals to address these pain points: one for game publishers to ensure they comply with regulations in over 200 markets worldwide and another for families to monitor their children’s gaming activities. 

The startup’s technology can configure publishers’ games to fit the regulations of the target markets they selected in the portal. After children input their personal information, they can access a version of the hosted game appropriate for their age and location. Guardians can also provide consent on this platform if required.

“[We] flip the script on the historical approach of ‘Confirm, I’m over 13’ or ‘Confirm, I’m over 16’, and offer an opportunity to engage the youth audience respectfully and meaningfully,” Donovan says.

Read more: Recently Funded: What Allies of Skin’s Nicolas Travis learnt from successfully raising $20 million

This innovative tool led to K-ID being selected as a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum in 2024, joining the ranks of esteemed alums such as early-stage Google and Airbnb. They’ve also gained clients such as Another Axiom’s Gorilla Tag, one of the most popular VR games in the world.

This past June, the startup secured US$45 million in Series A funding led by venture capital companies Andreessen Horowitz (A16z) and Lightspeed Venture Partners. We speak to Donovan, a first-time entrepreneur, about what he learned from this recent raise that other founders should know.

What was the goal of the Series A round? 

Kieran Donovan (KD): We have been super excited to bring the technology to market and get it into the hands of kids, teens, parents and more publishers. We have had an extraordinary reception from the industry. We have been working with several AAA publishers, web publishers, indies and platforms. There are a lot of people that we feel are counting on us to make the experience better for kids and teens online. We are now in an exciting position to deliver on that promise and solve that challenge that everybody knows exists for kids online.

Did you set a target amount of funding you aim to secure?

KD: This is my first startup; I’m a first-time founder. So I didn’t come in with any presumptions or assumptions about how things should or shouldn’t be done, what milestones are associated with a seed round or any round and how you should calculate valuation. I come at it with an open mind. 

We focused on who we wanted to work with. We have an ambitious vision for what we want to build and achieve and the impact we want to have. It was less about the dollars and more about finding the right partner aligned with that vision.

What qualities do you look for in an investor?

KD: What is interesting is the challenge of diving deep into who makes sense as the right partner and investor for us. Part of it is ensuring that we are mission-aligned, part of it is their experience in the industry we are focused on. But a big part of it is whether the investor can go on this adventure with us and buy in on that adventure. These are the three things that go through our heads. 

One thing I’ve learned in my career, and especially now at K-ID, is if people are passionate about what they’re doing and feel like they’re making a difference, then that one minute, that US$1 will have so much more value than if they don’t. Not every dollar is created equal.

How did you prepare for the pitch?

KD: We were fortunate to be part of the A16z Speedrun, their accelerator programme for video game startups and adjacent startups. We had the most incredible experience. At the end of that, you get up on stage at GDC, the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. So I was on stage in March this year, having honed my pitch over three months. I got 3 minutes to explain how we will change the world. That helped me do all the work before those investment meetings.

How should founders prepare themselves before a meeting with a venture capitalist?

KD: Learn as much as you can before you walk into the meeting. There are different types of venture capitalists. They have different-sized funds, they can be on different timelines in terms of fund deployment, they have different focuses in terms of geography and industry, and they will have a certain thesis driving how they will deploy capital. You want to understand and learn as much of that as you can to have a targeted conversation about what you feel would be great about that partnership.

You also want to know what questions to ask because there might be a core thesis for a particular fund. If you research and understand it, you can be candid about why it may or may not work right now. We were candid going into meetings and saying, “We think what you do is great, but maybe not now or we’re not quite in that vertical sector focus yet.” We would then often get answers like, “We just finished raising our latest fund and that’s more focused on what you’re doing.” You can have a much more productive discussion.

What do you think stood out about your pitch?

KD: The one feedback we consistently got was how enthusiastic we all were about the mission and what we were building. Your enthusiasm and conviction about what you are doing matter as much as what you say. It can be a brilliant idea and make total financial sense, but if the passion isn’t there, it will be tough to convince anyone that your idea will grow into what you are saying it will become. So, I think it was our enthusiasm.

How has your founder journey been?

KD: I am living my best life. I love what we are building. I love the mission that is driving us every day. But what I love most is our team. We have brilliant, talented, creative people who are incredibly humble. Many internal discussions about the mission and how we can best make an impact are humbling. Kudos that people will give to other team members, completely unsolicited, happens regularly every day. It’s ingrained in our culture’s fabric that we have an exciting and fun workplace.

How did the team help you with fundraising?

KD: What’s exciting about having four co-founders is that we are great at challenging ourselves, having deep discussions and then backing our decisions as a founding team. We treat and have treated investment in the same way. When it came to the terms, the four of us discussed them at length. We identified what was important to us because we were intentional about it in terms of the roadmap—our vision for the company in one, two, five and ten years from now.

What’s one fundraising tip for fellow entrepreneurs?

KD: When things are moving at high velocity, stop and take a moment to breathe it in. You have to consciously force yourself to take that pause. There’s a piece of advice that I was given early on: take 5 or 10 minutes every Friday, at the end of the day, to stop and reflect on what has happened the past week and what the team has achieved before going into the weekend. Don’t miss those moments when you can reflect on those little beads.

Quotes are edited for clarity and brevity.

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