Age of Learning, the company behind educational app ABCmouse, is releasing its first-ever fully CG-animated series to support the app’s international growth—and that’s just the tip of its new content strategy.

The new preschool series, Backpack Adventures (pictured), will be released in the app and on YouTube Kids on May 22. India’s Saffronic animated the 20 x three- to four-minute series. The episodes focus on three mice who turn school moments into deeper learning experiences. In one episode, the mice stop their classroom hamster from rolling away in a giant snowball, learning the power of teamwork; in another, books transport the characters to magical worlds, teaching kids the value of reading.

The series is meant to support ABCmouse, the company’s educational app for two- to eight-year-olds, which it has been “reimaginging” since the beginning of this year, says Age of Learning CEO Alex Galvagni. The company is updating the app’s visuals, making new games and creating a free tier for the subscription-based app for the first time. All of these changes are aimed at expanding the US-based app internationally and making it appealing to global families, says Galvagni.

“If you’re going to new territories and trying to expand, you really need to have a product that is compelling, that feels fresh, that feels new, and that is modern,” he says. “[Today we have] a hugely expanded active user base. We have about 40% of children on the platform actually outside the United States, which is something completely new [to us].”

ABCmouse first came out in 2010, but it only embraced YouTube and social media in the last few years. The company long believed that posting to these sites would cannibalize views away from its subscription service. But the opposite turned out to be true.

The company has been steadily posting on YouTube (2.1 million subscribers and 4.9 billion views) and social (4.1 million TikTok followers), and it has seen dramatic growth as a result. ABCmouse’s monthly active users hit roughly three million in the first three months of 2026, roughly double what it was for the same period last year, Galvagni says. And many of the app’s users have been increasingly indicating that they discovered the app through YouTube.

In a significant change for the company, Age of Learning is now open to partnerships with brands and IPs that have a clear educational angle. Previously, the company never did partnerships, but its recent team-up with the MLB was a home-run—one video they made together got 3.5 million views on YouTube—motivating the company to do more. “The MLB really was a win-win for everyone,” says Galvagni. “We got fantastic content on YouTube. We drove a lot of views. We’ve got really fun activities that children will enjoy. We’ve been able to leverage it in our advertising, and it actually drives a lot of traffic.”

Now, Age of Learning is partnering with the San Diego Zoo, a good example of the sort of collaborations it’s looking for, Galvagni notes. That arrangement brings video feeds and a virtual tour from the zoo into ABCmouse, adding value to the app.

In the short- and long-term, the company says it’s looking to keep expanding its market and will continue taking new creative swings as it did with Backpack Adventures. “You should definitely expect more content and new series, just like this one,” Galvagni says. “This isn’t just something we’re testing to see if it works—this is a direction that we’re taking the company, with higher-end visuals, better experiences, new activities and new series.”

Image courtesy of Age of Learning.