Online education game developer Kneo Media gained 27 per cent after expanding into five new US sites.

Kneo (ASX:KNM) makes educational games targeted towards special education students in the US.

After proving their value in the New York public school system, Kneo is now expanding into Newark and Buffalo, with three more US states to come.

Kneo shares closed at 14c on Thursday, valuing the company at $70 million.

Kneo’s flagship game KneoWorld is set in a futuristic world where students take part in numeracy, literacy, science, arts and memory tasks through a gaming setting.

Detailed feedback is then fed back to teachers to monitor performance and allow for further targeting.

Kneo shares over the past six months. Source: Investing.com
Kneo shares over the past six months. Source: Investing.com

“Games Based Learning is an integral part of childhood education. Growth in educational markets, combined with advances in mobile devices and connectivity, will continue to accelerate innovation, adoption, and affordability of our products around the world,” Kneo told shareholders.

The latest iteration, KneoWorld Galaxy Rising, is a 24-episode series that takes kids on an epic adventure where they follow the story and solve puzzles to help the kid explorers resettle the abandon Earth and save humanity.

The company derives income through a licence fee of $US50 per student. With an initial 6700 licences sold in late FY2017 and 4200 sold in the last four weeks of the year they say they are well poised for growth.

In New York alone there are 2300 schools with 1.25 million students — 220,000 of whom have special needs.

Kneo completed a capital raising of $3.85 million in October at 4.5c.

Building on their traction for New York public schools, the company hopes to tap into the Australian and Philippine education markets.

In the last quarter they made $8000 in sales and had $233,000 in the bank at the end of the period.

They expect to spend $400,000 in the quarter to December.

Earlier this month, the company appointed notable New York educators Dr Mary McInerney and Keith Wright to spearhead their move into further US schools.