Macmillan has announced a distribution and publishing partnership with Encantos, a bilingual Spanish and English edtech company for children based in Culver City, Calif. Encantos offers direct-to-consumer hybrid digital and analog learning tools including subscription apps and boxes, animated series, books, puzzles and games. Under the agreement Macmillan will distribute existing products and develop new ones.
Encantos was launched in 2015 with a series of YouTube videos and accompanying books that offered traditional songs in English and Spanish, which became Canticos and was licensed by Nickelodeon in 2017. The Canticos brand has since expanded to include bilingual tools for preschoolers to learn ABCs and 123s in Spanish and English. In addition, Encantos launched Skeletitos, a Day of the Dead-themed series that offers a book for learning to tell time, among other titles focused on overcoming fear and anxieties, and Tiny Travelers, a series of books and activities focused on geography and adventure.
“Encantos is at the cutting edge of bringing diverse voices to children’s entertainment and education," said Jon Yaged, president of Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group in a release announcing the partnership. "Their team is phenomenally creative and consistently discovers and nurtures new, underrepresented creators who tell stories inspired by culture with universal appeal."
Steven Wolfe Pereira, CEO and co-founder of Encantos, said, “With over fifty percent of kids in America today being multicultural, there is an incredible hunger for more diverse voices. We work with authentic storytellers, to tell authentic stories with mass appeal from diverse perspectives. However, we go way beyond just telling a simple story. We bring our stories to life through Storyteaching. We match each story with the 21st century learning, literacy, and life skills they best model. Encantos is leading the way with the stories that need to be told, with the skills that need to be taught, in the ways that children learn best.”
The company is poised for growth, particularly with so many students learning from home, and is well financed. This past February Encantos raised $2.5 million from investors and added a further $5.7 million in November, bringing the total raised by the company this year to more than $8 million.
