Founded in 2018, ALPA Kids creates digital learning games for children aged 3–8, developed in close collaboration with local teachers and researchers to ensure pedagogically sound, age-appropriate content in each child’s native language. ALPA Kids mission is to turn children’s screen time into a safe, enriching learning experience by offering e-learning games in their native language.
Each game reflects local culture, nature, and traditions, helping children connect digital learning with the world around them.
The company was founded after Kelly and Mikk, while living in Spain, searched for quality educational apps for their young children. They wanted screen time to be meaningful, engaging, and rooted in their children’s native language and culture, yet found that few age-appropriate, culturally relevant options existed for less spoken languages. This gap inspired them to create ALPA Kids.
Locally adapted, globally trusted
Today, the app features more than 100 games and is trusted in 9 countries – Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, the United Kingdom and India. Each version is carefully adapted to the local context, aligning alphabets, numbers and shapes with the national curriculum, while incorporating local flora and fauna so that children in every market encounter familiar and relevant content.
ALPA collaborates closely with teachers, researchers and educational institutions in every country. The result is an app that complements both home learning and classroom use. The games are structured with four difficulty levels, ensuring that the content grows with the child. Offline functionality and integrated off-screen activities add further value, creating a balanced learning experience. Importantly, the app is ad-free and is designed to protect child safety.
ALPA Kids has 2+ million downloads and is used in over 400 schools and kindergartens worldwide. Its impact has been recognized internationally, with honors such as Holon IQ’s Nordic and Baltic Best Educational Companies (two years in a row), the Estonian President’s award “For Children and With Children,” and the Tehnopol AI Marathon prize. Strong academic collaborations, including multiple defended master’s theses, confirm its effectiveness in classrooms.
Technology meets education
ALPA app features an AI-powered learning path that recommends personalised content for each child. Parents and teachers can track progress through goal-based analytics, gaining insights into areas of strength and learning gaps. The app also offers a slow speech mode for improved clarity, especially helpful in language acquisition and for children with special needs.
A notable innovation is ALPA’s collaboration with dr. Tanel Alumäe from the TalTech’s Language Lab, where children’s speech recordings are used – with parental consent – to train non-English children’s speech recognition models. By Summer 2025, over 50,000 audio files were collected, making the models nearly three times more accurate. This scientific breakthrough for developing oral language learning tools and speech therapy, especially in underrepresented languages.
Research-driven innovation and measurable Impact
ALPA Kids stands out in EdTech through close research collaboration with universities and educators. Peer-reviewed studies and defended master’s theses confirm its impact on language acquisition, personalized learning, and future skills. Research shows repeated gameplay improves grammar, while kindergarten studies highlight gains in independence, collaboration, and problem-solving. Impact measurement in Tallinn schools and preschools demonstrated a 70% improvement in numeracy and literacy over six months. Founder Kelly Lilles, pursuing a PhD in Linguistics, bridges academia and entrepreneurship, ensuring scientific insights directly shape the app’s design and classroom impact.
Strategic support for research and global growth
Alongside external investors, Enterprise Estonia has played a key role in ALPA Kids’ international growth and research-driven innovation. Their support enabled expansion into Poland and the UK, strengthened by localized content and school partnerships, and funded applied research through major innovation grants — including co-funding for a nearly €1 million project to develop Robo-Alpa, a secure verbal chatbot supporting oral knowledge acquisition for non-English-speaking children.
A scalable model for the future
ALPA’s ability to adapt its content to any language and culture makes it uniquely scalable. The company is now targeting further expansion in Central Europe.
ALPA Kids demonstrates how technology, cultural relevance and scientific research can be combined to transform children’s screen time into a valuable learning experience. What began as a simple wish by parents a broad formative-language learning tools has grown into a globally scalable educational technology company – one that is giving children everywhere the chance to learn in their native language.
Facts and figures
- Founded: 2018
- Employees: 9 (2025)
- Sector: Educational technology, entertainment, gaming
- Markets: Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, United Kingdom, India
- Users: 120,000 monthly active users, 400+ schools and locally adapted, globally trusted kindergartens
