Mightfier

Mightifier was a Finnish education technology company founded in 2015 by Mervi Pänkäläinen, who served as its CEO. The company's creation was inspired by a personal project for a friend's 40th birthday, which involved collecting positive feedback about them from others. This concept evolved into a tool aimed at tackling school bullying, a significant threat to student wellbeing. Pänkäläinen, who holds an MBA from Aalto University and has over 20 years of experience in transformation and innovation, was motivated by a desire to shift the focus of personal development from weaknesses to strengths. The company, which is now listed as deceased, was based in Helsinki and focused on social and emotional learning for children.

The firm developed an application-based program designed to improve students' social and emotional skills by fostering a culture of positive peer-to-peer feedback. The platform allowed students to give each other constructive feedback based on character strengths, with the goal of reducing bullying, decreasing student stress, and improving the overall classroom atmosphere. For educators, the application provided a dashboard to monitor these interactions, track student well-being development, and identify early signs of isolation or bullying. This data could be aggregated at the class, school, and even district level, offering administrators valuable insights into the student environment. The business model appeared to be B2B, selling the program and professional development services directly to schools and districts. Starting in 2021, their plans included professional development sessions for teachers, in-depth training on the app, and structured lesson plans.

Mightifier's program was available on tablets (iOS and Android) and later as a browser-based version. Its features included a "Wellbeing Pulse," where students answered questions about their feelings, and a sociogram map to help teachers visualize social connections within the classroom. The content and characters in the app were co-created with input from children and educators to ensure they were engaging. The company gained some traction, securing $250K in a seed funding round in October 2016 from investors including xEdu, CHMG Capital, and Courage Ventures Funds. It also won the Creative Business Cup Finland in 2017 and formed partnerships to distribute the application in Asia and implement it in schools across the U.S.

Keywords: social emotional learning, edtech, anti-bullying, classroom wellbeing, positive psychology, peer feedback, student engagement, character strengths, school culture, teacher tools, student wellbeing analytics, K-12 education, digital learning tool, classroom management, child mental health, educational software, Helsinki startup, Mervi Pänkäläinen, safe learning environments