Kami co-founder on how it soared to a $300m valuation and caught Sam Altman’s eye

Fresh from revealing Boston Ventures have bought into the company at a $300m valuation, Kami co-founder Hengjie Wang was understandably jubilant when he caught up with Caffeine this week.  

“I have a perfect pun for this interview. I am excited, ecstatic and over-caffeinated!” 

Previous to Boston Ventures buying in, edu-tech provider Kami was listed in Time’s most influential 100 companies in 2022 and is used by more than 40 million students and teachers across 180 countries. 

Early investor NZ Growth Capital Partners (NZGCP) received its largest ever return, $37m, following the valuation. But Wang says Kami is ‘only scratching the surface’. 

“We have over a billion learners in the world, and we have not penetrated every corner of the world yet. There’s a lot more scale-up that we could be doing.”

Kami takes almost every element of the classroom, from lesson plans to students’ exercise books, and puts them in an interactive and personalised digital format, increasing engagement and saving time. 

When asked what sets his company apart from other edu-tech providers, Wang pointed to a laser focus on being responsive to its users’ needs.  

“We had a customer email us because it was Black History Month in the US. They said the colour palette of our product did not have enough skin tones to fully represent the diversity that she had in her classroom,” said Wang.

“Within 24 hours we had an update out, pushed out to over 40 million users around the world that can benefit from more diverse representative skin tones.”

Founded in 2013, it was six years later, during the COVID pandemic, that Kami went from local success to an international player. Suddenly, thousands of schools needed to digitise their classrooms overnight. 

Demand for their product surged but where other companies might look to capitalise, Kami chose a different path.   

“We wanted to be there to help, so we gave it away for free,” Wang said.  

“Our sales dried up overnight because of this. We converted from selling, to supporting, to ensuring no one was left behind.” 

While the cash flow hit was serious, the goodwill it created laid the foundation for Kami’s future. The user base doubled over the next six months, and soon a customer was insisting on paying for the service. 

“We initially tried to turn them down and tell them it was free, but they turned around and said, ‘Here’s some extra money we’ve got available in our budget because we know other schools can’t afford this right away.” 

Wang estimates Kami experienced five years of growth in one year during the pandemic peak. Deloitte reported a 1,177% revenue increase for the company from 2019-2021. 

Addressing concerns that Boston Ventures taking a controlling stake will deflect it from its mission, the founder stressed that he and his three co-founders, including his wife Alliv Samson, aren’t going anywhere. 

“We’re staying as founders; we’ve got a significant presence in New Zealand. We’ve over 100 staff at the company, but the vast majority is in New Zealand, and that’s not going away anytime soon.”

Kami is also committing to continue being free of charge for classrooms across Aotearoa.

Looking to the future, Wang believes emerging technologies will transform the way we educate and says the company is committed to responsibly integrating artificial intelligence. 

He believes the automation of menial tasks and the creativity AI can unlock will ease pressure on time-poor teachers and help make lessons more bespoke to students’ needs. 

On that mission, the company has possibly the world’s most influential AI figure as both an adviser and investor: Open AI CEO Sam Altman. 

“Sam invested early on in our 2014 or 2015 round after seeing a lot of promise in what we were building. He saw that the impact we were having is extremely important, and immediately, within 24 hours of meeting us, he put money into our bank account,” said Wang.  

“Since then, he’s been an advisor. We met up with him regularly and visited his offices even before 2016. He’s been a great supporter of Kami.” 

Alongside its work in classrooms across the globe, Wang hopes Kami shows other startups at home that there is no limit to the impact they can have from the bottom of the world. 

“New Zealand can easily export globally on the world stage, in the world’s most competitive markets, and be a market leader in this space. We did it all for a number of years over COVID out of our pyjamas in our homes.” 

His advice to other founders looking to follow in this potential future unicorn’s footsteps: never lose sight of who their product or service is for. 

“Listen to customers, respond to them, and truly partner with them, making improvements to the product and platform based on their feedback. Oh, and thank them. They’ll come back to you; they’ll do business with you. That’s the kind of long-term thinking that we need to remember. That’s how you build lasting resilient companies.”