Isabel Sheinman and Tanyella Leta have been building in the childhood development space together for over a decade. They co-founded Nabu, an early literacy platform and nonprofit that reached ~15M children across 26 countries and licensed original IP to Scholastic.
After stewarding Nabu off to new leadership, the founders each attended top graduate programs and built the technology backbone behind Maka.
The vast majority of childhood content is consumed on YouTube today. And the problem Maka is solving is one most parents with young kids feel daily. (Coincidentally, this morning I was listening to Gary Tan at YC talk about it on Rick Rubin’s podcast.)
Over 70% of parents with young children report screen time as a daily stressor. Researchers at the University of Michigan found that less than 5% of educational YouTube videos offer real developmental value. With AI-generated content now flooding the platforms, the problem is getting worse. Parents don’t have an easy way to find media that’s actually good for their children, or stop kids from stumbling on the wrong thing. The parental controls on today’s platforms are minimal, inconsistent, and offer no developmental insights.
Maka’s MVP is an app with a simple UX built for parents. Its technology scores video content against a proprietary framework grounded in child development science, letting parents curate playlists for children ages 0–8 based on age, developmental goals, preferred characters, session limits, and more. Tanyella began developing the underlying technology — an AI that identifies dangerous images and language in video content — while at Harvard and MIT, in collaboration with researchers at Yale’s Child Study Center. The app runs curated channels through YouTube’s ad-free player built for education, so there are no ads and no algorithmic influence on what kids see. Looking ahead, we think Maka could create its own educational content and partner with other studios, platforms, and more.
Begin participated in Maka’s $3M Pre-Seed round alongside Detroit Venture Partners (Dan Gilbert), Invest Detroit, and others. To read our full research memo on Maka, plus access private investment opportunities alongside Begin, join our investor community.
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