edtech
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Digging for dollar signs amid edtech’s current momentum
Edtech was long defined by stodgy sales cycles, sluggish adoption and splashy pitches to K-12 districts with tight budgets, but the COVID-19 pandemic turned that reputation on its head in short order.
Now, companies in the space are entering Q2 — traditionally a slower time reserved for product development and extra focus on existing clients — busier than ever. In this piece, we’ll unpack some of the dollar signs indicating that edtech may be entering a new era.
Broader investor interest
A number of edtech founders who are not seeking venture capital have recently told me their inboxes are cluttered with notes from investors looking to chat.
It’s a refreshing break from the usual fundraising doom-and-gloom we’ve been hearing about during this pandemic, but I want to note the nuance: We’re seeing investors who have never been interested in edtech become bullish on the category as a whole. If these investors put their money where their mouths are, we’ll start to see an uptick of venture funding sector-wide.
For EdSights, co-founded by sister duo Claudia and Carolina Recchi, doors are opening. Before COVID-19, they say they mainly attracted interest from opportunity investors and edtech investors. Now, they’re talking to a number of VCs, none solely from edtech-focused funds.
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Understanding Duolingo’s quiet $10M raise
Earlier this month, edtech unicorn Duolingo raised $10 million in new venture capital from General Atlantic, per an SEC filing. With the raise, the online language learning platform accepted its first outside investor in almost three years. General Atlantic will take a board observer seat at the company, per Duolingo.
The company, which was last valued at $1.5 billion, says the round has increased its valuation, but it declined to share by how much.
General Atlantic has invested in a number of edtech companies around the world, like OpenClassrooms, Ruangguru and Unacademy. Duolingo said that General Atlantic’s global platform and experience with online education in Asia would help guide its own growth, specifically pointing to its plans to scale up the Duolingo English test.
The e-learning company last raised $30 million in December at that $1.5 billion valuation. To raise a smaller sum a few months later is uncommon. Historically, that type of raise could happen for a number of reasons: a company is accepting a later investment as part of the same funding round, it needs more cash and this is an easy way to raise it or the company tried to raise a new large round and failed to secure past $10 million.
So where does the language learning unicorn fit?
In Duolingo’s case, it said the $10 million was raised because it wanted to bring a new investor on, but didn’t need a massive amount of primary capital. Duolingo says it is cash-flow positive.
In the past few weeks, Duolingo launched a new app to help children read and write, passed one million paying subscribers for Duolingo Plus and disclosed that its annual bookings run rate is $140 million. The company also recently hired its first CFO and general counsel.
“Because our business has been growing very fast and we have more than enough capital, there was limited need for us to raise more primary capital. However, over the last year, we developed a relationship with General Atlantic,” the company said in a statement to TechCrunch.
Tanzeen Syed, a managing director for General Atlantic, said that Duolingo is a “market leader in the language learning space. Syed also said Duolingo has a “profitable, efficient business model while maintaining hyper-growth characteristics.”
Another key factoid here is that along with the $10 million, there was a larger secondary transaction, which occurs when an existing stockholder sells their stock for cash or to a third party, or to the company itself while the company is still private.
In this case, an existing investor in Duolingo sold a small portion of their existing stake to allow General Atlantic to have a bigger stake in the company.
The company declined to share the size of the secondary market transaction.
In light of this new information, Duolingo’s expansion to Asia, which has a robust market of English learners, welcomed one investor and lessened the stake of another.
Based on what we know, the transaction signals that a preexisting investor in Duolingo was looking for liquidity at a time where the public markets are tightening and private markets are pausing. And at a time when companies are staying private longer than ever before, secondary transactions are hardly rare.
Sometimes, however, secondary transactions signal a lack of faith from a preexisting investor in the company’s current trajectory.
Duolingo is full steam ahead on its goal to expand across the world — and now has new cash in the bank, and a new observer seat on the board, to prove it.
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Labster’s latest partnership, and what it tells us about the future of remote learning
Labster, a virtual science lab edtech company, today announced that it is partnering with California’s community college network to bring its software to 2.1 million students.
California Community Colleges claims to be the largest system of higher education in the country. The Labster partnership will provide 115 schools with 130 virtual laboratory simulations in biology, chemistry, physics and general sciences.
As COVID-19 has forced schools to shutter, edtech companies have largely responded by offering their software for free or through extended free trials. What’s new and notable about Labster’s partnership today is that it shows the first few signs of how that momentum can lead to a business deal.
Based in Copenhagen, Labster sells virtual STEM labs to institutions. The startup has raised $34.7 million in known venture capital to date, according to Crunchbase data. Labster customers include California State University, Harvard, Gwinnett Technical College, MIT, Trinity College and Stanford.
Lab equipment is expensive, and budget constraints mean that schools struggle to afford the latest technology. So Labster’s value proposition is that it is a cheaper alternative (plus, if students spill a testing vial in a virtual lab, there’s less clean up).
That pitch has slightly changed since COVID-19 forced schools across the world to shut down to limit the spread of the pandemic. Now, it’s pitching itself as the only currently viable alternative to science labs.
For many edtech companies, the surge of remote learning has been a large experiment. Often, edtech companies are giving away their product and technology for free to help as schools scramble to move operations completely digital.
For example, last week self-serve learning platforms Codecademy, Duolingo, Quizlet, Skillshare and Brainly launched a Learn From Home Club for students and teachers. Before that, Wize made its exam content and homework services available for free. And Zoom offered its video-conferencing software for free to K through 12 schools, which had mixed results.
Labster itself gave $5 million in free Labster credits to schools across the country. The list continues.
Labster’s new deal shows edtech companies can secure new customers right now — without breaking the bank.
Labster CEO and co-founder Michael Bodekaer declined to give specifics on what the deal is worth. He did share that Labster works with schools one by one to understand how much they can, or want to, invest in teacher training and webinar support. He also confirmed that Labster does profit from the deal.
“We want to make sure that we set ourselves up for supporting our partners but still also make sure that Labster as a financial institution can pay our salaries,” Bodekaer said. “But again, heavy discounts that help us cover our costs.”
The long game for Labster, like many edtech companies, is that schools like the platform so much that these short-term stints have a better chance to lead to long-term relationships.
“We’ll be keeping these discounts as long as we possibly can sustain as a company,” he said. “It looks like initially the discount was until August and now we’re extending it until the end of the year. If that continues, we may extend it even further.”
Pricing aside, the real struggle toward implementation for Labster, and honestly any other edtech company focused on remote learning, is the digital divide. Some students do not have access to a computer for video conferencing or even internet connection for assignments.
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted how many households across America lack access to the technology needed for remote learning. In California, Google donated free Chromebooks and 100,000 mobile hotspots to students in need.
Bodekaer said that Labster is currently working on providing its software on mobile, and has worked with Google to make sure its product works on low-end computers like Chromebooks.
“We really want to be hardware agnostic and support any system or any platform that the students already have,” he said. “So that hardware does not become a barrier.”
While today’s partnership brings 2.1 million students access to Labster’s technology, it does not directly account for the percentage of that same group that might not have access to a computer in the first place. The true test, and perhaps success, of edtech will rely on a true hybrid of hardware and software, not one or the other.
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London edtech startup pi-top sees layoffs after major contract loss
London-based edtech startup pi-top has cut a number of staff, TechCrunch has learned.
According to our sources, the company has reduced its headcount in recent weeks, with staff being told cuts are a result of restructuring as it seeks to implement a new strategy.
One source told us pi-top recently lost out on a large education contract.
Another source said sales at pi-top have been much lower than predicted — with all major bids being lost.
Pi-top confirmed to TechCrunch that it has let staff go, saying it has reduced headcount from 72 to 60 people across its offices in London, Austin and Shenzhen.
Our sources suggest the total number of layoffs could be up to a third.
In a statement, pi-top told us:
pi-top has become one of the fastest growing ed-tech companies in the market in 4.5 years. We have a unique vision to increase access to coding and technical education through project based learning to inspire a new generation of makers.
As part of this vision we built up our global team with a view to winning a particularly exciting national project in a developing nation, where we had a previous large scale successful implementation. We were disappointed this tender ultimately fell through due to economic factors in the region and have subsequently made the unfortunate but unavoidable decision to reduce our team size from 72 to 60 people across our offices in London, Austin and Shenzhen.
Moving forward we are focusing on our growth within the USA where we continue to enjoy widespread success. We are rolling out our new learning platform pi-top Further which will enable schools everywhere to access a world of content enhanced by practical hands-on project based learning outcomes. We have recently completed a successful Kickstarter campaign and we look forward to releasing our newest product pi-top [4].
We are also proud to have appointed Stanley Buchesky as our new Executive Chairman. Stanley brings a wealth of experience in the ed-tech sector and will be a great asset to our strategy going forward.
Pi-top sells hardware and software designed for educational use in schools. It’s one of a large number of edtech startups that have sought to tap into the popularity of the “learn to code” movement by piggybacking atop the (also British) low-cost Raspberry Pi microprocessor — which provides the computing power for all pi-top’s products.
Pi-top adds its own OS and additional education-focused software to the Pi, as well as proprietary cases — including a bright green laptop housing with a built-in rail for breadboarding electronics.
Its most recent product, the pi-top 4, which was announced back in January, looks intended to move the company away from its first focus on educational desktop computing to more modular and embeddable hardware hacking that could be used by schools to power a wider variety of robotics and electronics projects.
Despite raising $16M in VC funding just over a year ago, pi-top opted to run a crowdfunding campaign for the pi-top 4 — going on to raise almost $200,000 on Kickstarter from 521 backers.
Pi-top 4 backers have been told to expect the device to ship in November.
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India’s edtech startup CollegeDekho raises $8 million to connect students with colleges
Indian edtech startup CollegeDekho, which helps students connect with prospective colleges and keep track of exams, has raised $8 million in a Series B round.
The new financing round for the four-year-old Gurgaon-based startup was led by its parent company GirnarSoft Education and London-based private equity investor Man Capital, which also participated in the startup’s Series A round last year.
Ruchir Arora, founder and CEO of CollegeDekho, told TechCrunch in an interview that the startup will use the capital to expand its presence in more schools and also begin connecting students with international educational institutions. The startup, which has raised $13 million to date, will also ramp up its research and development efforts.
CollegeDekho, Hindi for search for college, maintains a website that helps students identify the right career choices for them. The website has a chatbot that answers some of the questions students have while logging their responses, and other activities such as the kind of colleges they are searching for, their preferred location and budget.
Arora said the startup, which also has about 3,000 call center representatives and counselors, builds profiles of students to make college recommendations. He said each month the site observes more than five million sessions from students. Last year, more than 8,000 students used CollegeDekho to take admission in a college.
Parents in India, a country of 1.3 billion people with not the best literacy record, see education as an upward mobility for their children. Each year, more than six to seven million students go to a college. But because of a range of factors that can include cultural stigma, many students end up choosing the wrong path and thus don’t excel in college. Indeed, many students ultimately don’t pursue the subject they are best suited for, Arora said, and that’s where CollegeDekho aims to make an impact.
Most high school students in India often gravitate toward engineering or medical college, as a result of which, each year India produces many engineers and doctors who struggle for years to find a job. Arora said his startup looks at more than 2,000 career paths a student could pursue.
What works in favor of Arora is that the country will continue to turn out millions of students each year who will be looking to go to a college soon. It also helps that CollegeDekho is operationally profitable, Arora said, adding that it generates about $3.2 million in revenue in a year. Any additional cash the startup raises will go into its expansion, he said.
CollegeDekho charges a nominal fee from students, and also takes a cut when they join a college. More than 36,000 educational institutes are listed on CollegeDekho. The startup also works with more than 400 colleges to conduct an exam for direct admission, and there too it earns a cut.
India’s education market, estimated to grow to $5.7 billion by next year, has emerged as a lucrative opportunity for startups and VCs alike. Bangalore-based Byju’s, which helps millions of students in India prepare for competitive exams, raised $540 million from Naspers and others late last year. Unacademy, which like Byju’s offers online tutoring to students, has raised more than $38.5 million to date.
A legion of other education startups today are vying for the attention of students in the nation. Noida-based AskIITians, not too far from the offices of CollegeDekho, aims to help school-going students prepare for medical and engineering exams. Extramarks, also based in Noida, operates in the same space as AskIITians. Reliance Industries, owned and controlled by India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, bought a 38.5% stake in the startup three years ago.
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Online university degree provider 2U acquires Trilogy for $750M to expand into tech bootcamps and training
As more universities turn to offering online degrees to expand their student bodies by way of cyberspace, one of the pioneers in enabling that trend has made an acquisition to expand into new territory around skills training and continuing education. 2U, which helps build online degree programs for a number of top universities, is paying $750 million to acquire Trilogy Education, which creates online and in-person “boot camps” — continuing education programs — in collaboration with universities to train those already in the workforce with tech skills in areas like coding, data analytics, UX/UI and cybersecurity.
The deal, which is expected to close in the next 60 days, is coming in a combination of cash and shares — $400 million in cash and $350 million in newly issued shares of 2U common stock — the company said. It’s a decent exit for Trilogy, which was valued at $545 million (according to PitchBook) when it raised $50 million in June 2018. Its investors include Highland Capital, Macquarie and Exceed, among others.
2U, meanwhile, has a market cap of $3.85 billion and is publicly traded on Nasdaq.
The acquisition helps 2U consolidate its university footprint, which will get bumped up to 68 from its previous 36. And it presents an obvious opportunity to up-sell and cross-sell: those who are already jumping into building degree programs can diversify into more skills training, while those who have yet to build full degree services but have created skills training programs now might consider how to parlay that experience into degrees — all from one provider, 2U. This also opens more generally a bigger window for 2U to expand into the continuing education market, which it estimates is worth some $366 billion.
It also helps it better compete with other companies that have already built a dual-track approach to online education, building degrees as well as short courses, like Coursera (Udacity and Udemy are among those that have focused on further education).
“[Trilogy Education] is a natural strategic fit and growth driver for 2U that will extend our reach across the career curriculum continuum, deepen our relationships with new and existing partners, drive marketing efficiencies, and open a more direct corporate training and enterprise sales channel for the company. We expect the addition of Trilogy to accelerate our path to $1 billion in revenue by one year from 2022 to 2021,” 2U co-founder and CEO Christopher “Chip” Paucek said in a statement. “Increasingly, universities are attempting to add practical, technical skills to their degrees. We simply future-proof the degree by adding this type of technical competency.”
The presence of commercial companies building educational courses for nonprofit universities, and taking a cut in the process, has seen more than a little controversy. The business spin that is put on education through these programs not only calls into question how and what schools (and their partners) prioritise in the curriculum, but they raise issues around how higher education is priced, and who profits from these degrees — which sometimes can still cost more than $60,000, despite no physical time in classrooms. (There is an excellent dive into the issue here in the Huffington Post, featuring an interview with the co-founder of 2U, John Katzman, who also founded the Princeton Review.)
To be fair, some of the issues around higher education — such as the exorbitantly high cost in some countries, and the fact that it still feels like a largely elitist endeavor with the odds of students gaining acceptance and achieving in top universities still in favor of too-small a privileged subset of families — cannot be completely tied to the development of online learning courses powered by for-profit companies.
And you could also argue that this was bound to be the next step, given how technology has evolved across all of education, and the fact that edtech is not a core competency for many institutions.
One of the potential positives that comes out of online degree programs is that it gives opportunities to a much wider group of would-be students, and mass market is something that Trilogy knows: it has to date already provided courses for 20,000 people and 1,200 instructors across 120 programs, it says, with an emphasis on practical skills to bring up local workforces, and working with universities to build these courses and connecting with big companies — customers include Google, Microsoft and Bank of America — to deliver them.
“By joining forces with 2U, Trilogy Education can empower universities to reach more students, in more places, throughout more of their lives, while driving positive economic impact in their local regions,” Trilogy Education CEO and founder Dan Sommer said in a statement. “Trilogy and 2U share a belief that universities are critical to lifelong learning and to meeting the workforce development needs of local economies both domestically and internationally, and we’re proud to further our mission and continue this important work as part of the 2U family.
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Peer tutoring platform Knack raises $1.5M from Charles Hudson, Jeff Vinik
Knack, a peer tutoring platform aimed at college students, is taking a different approach than some online tutoring marketplaces have in the past. As a result, the Florida-based startup has raised a $1.5 million seed round co-led by Charles Hudson’s Precursor Ventures and Tampa Bay Lighting owner and Fenway Sports Group Partner, Jeff Vinik.
Other investors in the round include Bisk Ventures, the corporate venture-arm of Bisk Education; Arizona State University Enterprise Partners; Doug Feirstein, founder of Hired, uSell, and LiveOps; former State of Florida CFO Alex Sink; Tom DiBenedetto of Fenway Sports Group; PAR Inc.; and Elysium Venture Capital.
While many tutoring marketplaces have focused on only connecting students with others who could help them with their studies, Knack has instead also been focusing on adding institutional partners as its customers.
Today, it works with more than 50 colleges across the U.S., like seed investor ASU, which is licensing Knack to modernize their student support services and increase access to supplemental help for students.
“Although most universities already have on-campus tutoring centers,” explains company co-founder and CEO Samyr Qureshi, “Knack partners with institutions as a technology-enabled supplemental solution, filling in the gaps by increasing course and topical coverage for nuanced courses that campus learning centers may not be able to cover due to budgetary and resource constraints,” he says.
In addition, Knack is also now working with corporate employer sponsors like PwC and ConnectWise, which want to engage with high-potential students from Knack’s campus networks.
“We’re focusing on the full life cycle of learning from ‘I need some help on Knack’ to ‘I can offer help through Knack’ to ‘my skills built and showcased through Knack helped me land a job,’” notes Qureshi.
The CEO says he was inspired to work in the edtech space because, as a first-generation immigrant, education has been at the forefront of his life. His mother brought Qureshi and his sister to the U.S. to allow them to pursue college degrees.
During his own time in school, Qureshi both sought tutoring and provided tutoring, which led him to believe that one of the best ways to learn was from a peer.
In 2016, the startup applied to the University of Florida’s Business Plan Competition and took home first place, winning a $25,000 cash prize. That opened the door to venture capital, and its first pre-seed round of funding.
While institutions and businesses are the focus in terms of monetization, Knack still caters directly to students today. Those who need help with their coursework can use Knack to book tutoring, and those who want to offer their skills can create a tutoring profile with basic info, like their bio, courses, rates and availability.
The platform then handles all the logistics, including searching, matching, scheduling, tracking, billing and rating and reviewing.
Knack takes a 20 percent service fee on this tier of its service. University partners are on a SaaS-based annual platform, and Employer partners are charged a sponsorship amount depending on their targeting criteria.
The team of eight is based in Tampa, Florida and plans to use the seed funding for sales and marketing, as well as making some key engineering hires, the CEO says.
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‘Instagram for classwork’ Seesaw in 1/2 of US schools
Kids don’t try their hardest unless they think someone’s watching. Overcrowded classrooms and distracted parents can make pouring effort into school work feel pointless. But Seesaw’s app turns their assignments into social media they share with teachers, peers and mom and dad. Now it’s invading schools across the country and just raised a Series A round from LinkedIn… Read More
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Pip is a retro games console for kids to learn coding
Another UK startup is using Pi electronics as the foundation for an edtech business idea, and Kickstarter to try to crowdfund their product: A learn-to-code retro games console. YC-backed Vidcode raises $1.5M to teach teens to code using Snapchat filters, videos, memes and more
Vidcode, a Y Combinator-backed startup focused on teaching teens how to code, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding for its curriculum. While there are a number of learn-to-code platforms out there today, Vidcode’s approach is to make coding more interesting to teens by connecting it to their existing interests – like Snapchat filters and memes – while also allowing… Read More
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