Dear EdTechers
I’ve changed the structure of the newsletter to make it more concise, enjoyable and relevant for my readers. It will cover recent news that happened in the EdTech space, startups in the space that excite me, as well as technologies that are disrupting education now and in the future.
Enjoy the newsletter and share it with your network.
Market Recap
The language learning marketplace Preply raised a $35 million Series B round, co-led by Full in Partners and Owl Ventures. With more than 10 million booked lessons and a network of over 40,000 tutors on the platform, Preply has gained a lot of traction in the last year despite facing competition from heavyweights Duolingo (IPO this year) and Babbel. Read more here.
GSV Ventures Raises $180M Fund to invest in the EdTech space, which is their second investment fund. Their focus lies on seed, Series A and later fundraising stages. Their portfolio companies include the unicorn Guild Education and Class Technologies. Various individuals working at GSV believe that there are a lot of intractable problems still remaining in education and that a lot of technologies, specifically AI and machine learning, have yet to meet their potential. Read more here.
Coursera filed for an IPO last week, which will make it one of a few companies to become a publicly traded EdTech company. Coursera was founded almost a decade ago and has experienced heavy growth since, whilst reportedly still generating net losses in excess of $60 million dollars. Read more here.
The German startup Sdui has raised a €7m Series A round according to Crunchbase, led by HV Capital. Sdui combines various communication tools, planning tools and video conferencing to create a hybrid learning platform for students, teachers and parents. With over 1.5 million users at 2500 schools, Sdui has experienced phenomenal growth during the pandemic. Read more here.
All eyes on: Mana
Mana is a company that I’ve been excited about ever since they raised their £1.5M pre-seed round led by Flash Ventures. The company envisions a world where everyone can make a living by sharing their passion.
Whether you are a tech leader, career advisor or K12 teacher, Mana enables you to share your passion through 1:1 sessions, live classes and the curation of content from platforms like Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Udemy into one, simple portfolio. The content creators can set up 1:1 sessions with their followers through a simple payment and calendar integration. Content creators can also build a subscriber base, which enables individuals to streamline the monetisation of their content.
Above all, Mana’s aim is to create a community of creators and followers. The company is planning to launch its beta in Q1 2021 and you can get early access here.
Innovation Room: VR in EdTech
There is no doubt that VR can have a phenomenal impact on different areas of life, including education.
In an article I read about a month ago, I came across VERE360. In an interview with Edsurge, VERE360’s cofounder Izzy Ngo stated that her company believes that education is a social process and that technology should highlight the best parts of education. Based on this, the company develops VR simulations and other content that can be used by teachers during lessons.
The application of VR in EdTech has just started. Contrary to what many may believe, you don’t necessarily need additional equipment to use certain types of VR applications. Laptop and Mobile VR can help make the learning in classrooms more experiential. This can increase engagement and retention when learning subjects. Imagine being able to play around with VR-animations of organs during biology classes or taking a “zip” through DNA replication from the view of a helicase enzyme. I would’ve loved it as a student.
What do you think: Is the use of VR in education overrated? Or does it have a lot of potential? Let us know in the comments.
IntoEdtech
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