Her Buffalo-based startup, Immersed Games, had been selling its video games that promote inquiry-based learning to schools that were adopting them into their curriculum. But now those digital products were one of the many items being put on the chopping block to help get district budgets under control.
“I started to get feedback from people who loved what we’re doing and the learning theory, but they literally were not allowed to buy anything right now,” said Tropf, founder and CEO of Immersed Games, a 43North finalist in 2018.
So Tropf started to have conversations with partners in the education space about the best path to take to help grow the business, and she decided to pivot her company’s direction.
Rather than continuing to create her own custom content, Tropf began to focus more on getting the company’s programs — games used to empower learning — embedded into the already established offerings of other publishers.
And that’s led to the opportunity for the games to have even broader use and garner additional support for their development.
While the focus remains to bring Immersed Learning into the classroom, the educational tech company now is gaining the funding to expand the games into different areas of learning and adding new features to make the product more powerful, Tropf said.
It could lead to the creation of additional jobs as well.
NEW FUNDING ON THE WAY
Though some deals have taken a while to close, Immersed Games’ new focus has been creating traction.
The company was recently named one of 50 winners, earning a $150,000 prize, in the global tech Tools Competition for its math game and flagship product, Tyto Online, which helps illustrate how artificial intelligence is being used to improve learning.
The company is also about to launch a pilot with one of the largest K-12 online course providers in the United States. It has multiple partner schools in Buffalo and is now part of a pilot program with software company CypherWorx of Rochester.
The company also has received two Small Business Innovation Research grants to make more tool sets for math and to introduce products that are inclusive and accessible to all.
“My first year or two, I thought we were going to make all that content, but then I realized that is a terrible idea,” Tropf said. “We really need to become a tool that other people can use to create their own content.”
FROM FLORIDA TO BUFFALO
Immersed Games, which has an office on 1160 Main St., moved to Buffalo in 2019 from Gainesville, Fla., after winning $500,000 in the 43North competition and has remained here.
Since the company was founded a decade ago, it has grown to 12 full-timers. All but two of them are in Western New York, where the cost of living has been a bonus, especially as inflation and interest rates go up, Tropf said. The company also uses contractors for various tasks, like instructional design work.
Tropf came up with the idea for Tyto Online while playing World of Warcraft. In the game, for example, users help solve problems on urban heat islands with statistics or learn about coordinate grids by planning a community park. This is so that students can experience the “why” behind math.
COMPANY CHOOSES BUFFALO OVER FLORIDA ... FOR OUR WEATHER
Contestants in the 43North competition had to be fast on their feet at Shea’s, answering questions from judges. Big money was on the line. Lindsey Tropf faced a doozy. A judge questioned why someone from Gainesville, Fla., would choose move her company, Immersed Games, to Buffalo. “I won’t have to lose two weeks of development every year fleeing the state from a hurricane,” Tropf said.
“I realized how much I learned just through experience and became fascinated with educational games and the idea that we could create a single video game that would serve as a platform began to emerge for me,” she said. “We focus on deep learning that emphasizes skill building. … Models for great learning can be done in games and often in more empowering ways than we see in other school lessons.”
For the pilot program with CypherWorx, Tropf was connected through Upstate Venture Connect, and then helped design the quest to fit into one of the organization’s compliance courses. It’s part of CypherWorx’s effort to try out game-based learning to help support adult learners.
Tropf’s team took home the $150,000 prize from the Shark Tank-style Tools Competition to help it reach its goal of growing from 30,000 users to 5 million users by 2027. This year’s competition generated nearly 2,000 submissions from 92 countries, and the 50 winners were from 18 countries.
HOPING FOR NEW DEALS
The pilot deal with one of the largest K-12 online course providers in the U.S. is not signed yet, so Tropf said she cannot reveal any details. She also is waiting on the potential state level contract for customized content that could bring additional jobs and opportunities for the company.
Also in the pipeline is the potential to use the company’s products for career exploration and middle school science.
One of the SBIR grants it received, worth up to $1.25 million in funding, will help bring additional features to the company’s gaming products to support visualizations for math and start building its program for math with middle school statistics and probability.
In collaboration with the U.S. Department of Education, the grant provides $250,000 for eight months of rapid prototype development and evaluation of new education technology prototypes in phase one and, potentially, $1 million for the full-scale development and evaluation of new education technology products in the second phase.
The other grant Immersed Games received is for work to make the gaming products accessible for blind and visually impaired learners. To help in that effort, Immersed Games is partnering with the nonprofit rehabilitation and social services agency Visually Impaired Advancement, which will provide students to assist with product development.
This grant program is structured in three phases, the first two of which are supported by SBIR funds. During phase three, the business will look to commercialize the products.
“If we’re going to be scaling through these partners to get to a million students, we don’t want to leave out groups of students,” Tropf said. “The direction I’ve always wanted for the company is that we are this video game where you can learn across any area. You can not only play this video game at school but also outside of school at home and learn about all sorts of other things.”
Tropf said she may still sell custom content math tools to schools if curriculum directors tell her that there is a need. She’ll continue collecting that data.
“It’s really about what schools need,” she said. “I’m trying to figure out what is going to make the most sense business wise and with the demand and kind of making sure it’s something that works well and is accessible to everyone, while finding that mix of how we can scale cost effectively.”
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