Imagi was founded by Pálfi Dóra and Beatrice Ionașcu out of a user-research project that began at KTH in Stockholm. The company builds an educational platform that lets primary and secondary school students use AI tools directly under teacher supervision, with curricula designed to give students practical AI literacy.
According to the company, imagi has reached more than 700,000 students across 140 countries and works with over 100 U.S. school districts — including the Hawaii Department of Education. The platform is present in all 50 U.S. states. The company is headquartered in New York, and its team operates in the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Finland.
Imagi has just closed a $4.5 million seed round. The company says it will deploy the funds to expand in the U.S., integrate additional cutting‑edge AI tools, scale teacher training programs and hire primarily U.S.-based staff. The financing will also support increased spending on compliance and research.
In a statement after the announcement, CEO Pálfi Dóra underlined the generational importance of AI education: “Today's schoolchildren are the first generation that will not know a world without AI. AI education therefore won't simply replace computer class; it will be the new literacy. But while reading books are designed for children, AI is not. That's why we need safe, proven AI education that teachers and parents can trust in its limits. AI is developing faster than any previous technology — we cannot bury our heads in the sand and pretend we don't need to introduce children responsibly to this world. With Lovable and OpenAI we have already reached hundreds of thousands of young people, and I believe that with the new capital and an expanding partner network, safe, state‑of‑the‑art AI tools can reach millions.”
The investor group includes a notable number of angels: founders, executives and education professionals. Participants named by the company include Mati Staniszewski, founder of ElevenLabs; Thomas Dohmke, former CEO of GitHub; and Fredrik Hjelm, co‑founder and CEO of Voi. The oversubscribed round also drew contributions from singer Will.i.am, serial entrepreneurs Sophia Amoruso and Simon Squibb, and leaders from OpenAI, Spotify and Lovable. Institutional and mission‑aligned investors such as Morgan Stanley and Sparkmind Capital also participated.
Imagi’s immediate priorities are U.S. market expansion, integrating additional AI tools, enlarging teacher training programs, and strengthening compliance and research capabilities. The new funding is intended to help the startup bring supervised, school‑ready AI tools to more students and school partners.
Why it matters
The company's growth and this seed round indicate demand for supervised, classroom‑appropriate AI solutions. The mix of investor types — individual founders and tech leaders alongside institutional backers — provides imagi with both domain expertise and financial resources to pursue product development, regulatory readiness and international scaling.
