Edtech Insiders Weekly Update 9/19

Your 5-minute guide to the edtech world.

NEWS FROM THE FIELD

This week, we were on the road at events like StartEd’s EdTechweek and the HolonIQ Global Impact Summit and Stanford’s Accelerator for Learning. It was really thrilling to see so many entrepreneurs, investors, educators and thought leaders in person, and renewed our faith in the power of the Education Technology community.

Some of the standout trends we spotted:

• Social-Emotional Learning, Alternative Credentialing, Virtual Apprenticeships, Interoperability and apps that support teachers were hot topics everywhere.

• ESSER funding is only going up over the next two years, and there is more than $150B yet to be spent to combat learning loss, improve well-being and support the hurting education system in the US. This is an unprecedented opportunity for both incumbent and emerging edtech companies… if they can get the ears of the districts.

• Many of the public or already acquired Edtech companies (Nerdy, 2U, Coursera, General Assembly) are working with new business models to adapt and grow. Nerdy just moved to a tutoring subscription model; 2U is pivoting toward an Edx-first platform strategy, and Coursera just launched its ‘career academy’ to double down on the popularity of industry certificates.

• Everybody’s looking for the best use cases for AI in education- no surprise there.

GSV CUP APPLICATIONS ARE OPEN FOR A FEW MORE DAYS!

We’ve spoken to several past winners of the GSV Cup, including Ope Bukola of Kibo School and Nikita Gupta of Symba on the Edtech Insiders podcast; it’s a fabulous opportunity for Edtech startups!

Applications for the 2023 GSV Cup are open, with $1M in non-dilutive cash and prizes up for grabs!

Some incredible companies have come through the GSV Cup in the past three years, like LingoAce, Ethena, LearnIn, Retrain.ai, Transfr, and Fiveable, among others. You can view past winners here. Companies that make the “Elite 200” earn benefits, including publicity from being named to the list, a free ticket to the ASU+GSV this April 17-19, 2023, and the chance to compete for $1M in non-dilutive cash and prizes.

 If you are interested, please apply here before the window closes on 9/30.

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BIG FIVE HEADLINES

We were on the road this week with less time than usual to digest the massive quantity of edtech news, but here are some headlines that jumped out for us!

1. HOLON IQ RELEASES NORTH AMERICA EDTECH 200

The ‘top 200’ startups in Edtech for North America were released- always worth a look given HolonIQ’s data-driven approach.

2. REACH CAPITAL RELEASES IMPACT REPORT

Reach Capital, one of the largest edtech funds, released a major impact report; well worth a look.

3. EDTECH APP TAKES TOP SPOT IN JORDAN

Abwaab, an edtech app that provides learning and tutoring (perhaps like the Byju’s of the Arabic world) took the top free app spot in the entire country)

4. AI TUTORS IN HIGHER ED

Nice piece about how AI-based tutoring is moving into higher ed in new ways.

5. GUILD EDUCATION TAKES #3 IN LINKEDIN’S TOP STARTUPS

LinkedIn released its top startups to work for list, and our Edtech friends at Guild Education make the top 3.

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FUNDING + M&A

With huge thanks to our friend Matt Tower of Edtech Thoughts:

Funding

• Ocelot raises $117m

• GiveCampus raises $50M

• Bhanzu raises $15M

• TeachFX raises $10M

• The Muse raises $8M

• Sparrow raises $7M

• Bibliu raises £1.3 of a £15m round)

• Growth School raises $5M
  
  M & A

• EAB acquires Concourse Global

• Times Higher Education acquires BMI

• StraighterLine acquires Childcare Education Institute

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LISTEN

Catch up on the most recent episodes of the Edtech Insiders podcast here:

listen to the full episode »

listen to the full episode »

listen to the full episode »

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READ

Check out Rethink Education’s hot off the presses report on the teacher shortage and how Edtech can help: “Our Teachers Are Leaving: What Now?” (Source of image below)

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