Advertisement

Epic is acquiring SuperAwesome, a company focused on kids' online safety

The two companies plan to build a "wide range" of secure services for kids.

SuperAwesome

Epic Games is acquiring UK-based SuperAwesome, a company that powers kid-safe internet technology. “More kids interact online than ever before and now is the time to double down on their safety,” said Epic founder and CEO Tim Sweeney.

It’s the company’s second deal this week after it acquired game development platform Manticore, and comes just a day after it joined a coalition to fight Apple and Google’s app store policies. Epic is also in the middle of an antitrust suit with Apple over its App Store rules.

SuperAwesome built a platform called Kids Web Services (KWS), a “parental consent management toolkit” that helps developers incorporate child-safe services, including advertising and monetization. KWS is GDPR compliant and has been certified through the KidSafe and other safe harbor programs. It’s used by over 300 companies including Nike, Disney, Hasbro and Lego, according to the company’s About page.

To use the platform, parents must provide identification and give a child permission to use the service. The tech could work with any of Epic’s games, including Fortnite, but Epic told VentureBeat that its main goal is to enable SuperAwesome’s platform for developers that use the Unreal game engine.

On top of that, the two companies plan to build a wide range of child-friendly services. “The internet was never designed for kids so we started SuperAwesome to make it as easy as possible to enable safe, privacy-driven digital experiences for children everywhere,” said SuperAwesome CEO Dylan Collins.