Education Technology
Article | July 20, 2022
Data and analytics have become a prominent strategy across industries to promote informed decision-making. Riding this wave is the higher education industry. Recently, the higher education IT association inaugurated a data and analytics edition of the Horizon Report, a report that provides a deep analysis of technology trends and practices that impact higher ed institutions. The report confirms that data analytics is an emerging alternative for strategic decision-making and planning.
According to the report, here are the six practices and technologies that will have the greatest impact:
Data Management
Data management and governance includes automating workflow, managing access, consent management, data privacy, and data integrity management. According to Educause, these data processes form an essential part of institutional success and security. Despite this, many institutions rely on multiple committees instead of a dedicated team for data management and governance. This gap is an opportunity for data and analytics solution providers to meet and improve data management in higher ed.
Consolidating Data Sources
Data silos are a common concern in higher ed institutions. The tremendous volumes of data that institutions have stored are never leveraged due to the divide between systems. Unifying these data sources will help higher education institutions build a seamless ecosystem that supports their administrative as well as remote instruction platforms.
Data Architecture
High-end analytics is incomplete without smart data architecture. The scalability and flexibility of the data architecture enables higher ed institutes to be agile and use data effectively to fuel decision-making. Establishing a modern data architecture will be at the top of the list for higher ed institutions.
Data Literacy
Equipping decision-makers and stakeholders with the necessary skills to interpret the insights generated by the data is crucial to the success of the organization. Stakeholders across the institutions in higher education, from management leaders to administrators and teachers, need data literacy training to leverage data efficiently.
DEI-based Data and Analytics
Data analytics professionals are putting more emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) to drive how they retrieve, analyze, and process data. This will allow higher ed institutions to capitalize on data and analytics to promote their DEI policies, boost equity, and track progress to improve outcomes.
Enhancing Institutions’ Data Analytics
The growing demand for meaningful, and insight-driven data is pressing data professionals to enhance their capabilities and contribute to the institutional capabilities to use data effectively. Institutional leaders can start considering what purpose data analytics might play in the future if stronger procedures are in place. Collaboration between institutions will be more secure, useful, and advantageous. Analytics administrators can anticipate greater outcomes for students, instructors, and staff as data analytics procedures advance.
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Continuing Education
Article | November 15, 2022
Those of us who work closely with students with autism know that they can exhibit unique learning characteristics. And in order to best meet students’ needs in the classroom, teachers rely on strategies that are most effective for learners on the spectrum. Through the work of the National Professional Development Center for Autism (NPDC), National Standards Project, and most recently, the National Clearinghouse on Autism Evidence and Practice (NCAEP), we have a clearly identified set of practices that are proven to work best for students with autism.
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Education Technology
Article | October 7, 2022
I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with math, leaning heavily towards the latter. It was always something I was good at, but didn’t enjoy. Quite frankly, it still stuns me on a regular basis that I’ve ended up working for a math company. Let me try to parse this out by saying that math has been intrinsically tied to every definitive choice I’ve made, consciously or unconsciously. Flash backwards—I’m 4. My mom is teaching me long division, insisting that this is absolutely crucial for how I map the rest of my life. I assume this is how the rest of my peers spend their time, completely oblivious to the fact that other neighborhood children are outside, running around on playgrounds, doing cartwheels up and down their sunlit front yards. Instead, I’m grinding away. I think I remember this as fun. I think I ask my mom to give me another multiplication problem.
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Education Technology
Article | December 27, 2021
This is a list of growing startups in the education technology space. Overall, VC funding in the edtech space grew by 94% last year, reaching $13 billion.
Big names like Udemy, MasterClass and Teachable might get all the attention. (And we will cover many edtech unicorns on this list.) But there are plenty of smaller, fast-growing Edtech startups to keep an eye on in 2021 and beyond.
Without further ado, let's dive into the list.
Teachoo
5-year search growth: 7500%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2014
Location: Pune, India
Funding: Undisclosed
What they do: Teachoo is an education platform that hosts a variety of online courses designed for English speaking students in India. Current course offering include tax preparation, Microsoft Excel and math.
Outschool
5-year search growth: 6300%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2015
Location: San Francisco, CA
Funding: $240.2M (Series D)
What they do: Outschool has created an educational platform for small live classes designed for homeschooling. Specifically, students and parents can choose from over 1,000 live classes designed for children, including ballet, drawing, STEM skills and anthropology. To date the company has had 500,000 students take at least once class and a total of 140,000 classes. Outschool now has a valuation of $3 billion and teachers have generated a reported $45 million from the platform.
Preply
5-year search growth: 3200%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2012
Location: Brookline, Massachusetts
Funding: $50.6M (Series B)
What they do: Preply is an online marketplace for finding tutors in a variety of different languages. The Preply platform also contains a "structured learning" option for those that want a tutor to help them take a more organized route. In addition to rankings, Preply also ranks tutors based on a machine learning model. The company reports that they have over 100,000 students on their platform.
Labster
5-year search growth: 575%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2011
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Funding: $103.5M (Series C)
What they do: Labster hosts several "virtual labs" for doing experiments in VR. Specifically, students use VR and AR software to practice lab techniques virtually. The major benefit is that students can practice in a safe environment. And prepare them for real-world lab work. Labster currently has over 150 virtual labs on its platform and boasts over 1,000 University clients.
Cambly
5-year search growth: 99X+
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2012
Location: San Francisco, CA
Funding: Undisclosed (Series B)
What they do: Cambly is an on-demand video platform for finding English language tutors. Includes features for lesson recordings, chat translations, courses and certifications. Cambly has a plan specifically for organizations that want to learn English.
Lessonly
5-year search growth: -4%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2012
Location: Indianapolis, Indiana
Funding: $29.1M (Series C)
What they do: Lessonly is software to help facilitate in-house staff training for companies. In other words, it's a learning platform for the B2B market. Their software comes with plug-and-play modules for training customer service reps and sales staff. Along with interactive tools that help employees practice scenarios they'll face in the real world.
Embrace
5-year search growth: 1900%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 1999
Location: Highland, Illinois
Funding: Undisclosed
What they do: Embrace is a tool for helping teachers document student performance in the classroom. The tool is designed to save educator's time when creating lesson plans and documenting results. Embrace reports that their tool cuts down reporting time by about 50% compared to traditional methods.
GoPractice
5-year search growth: 0%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2013
Location: Simpsonville, South Carolina
Funding: Undisclosed
What they do: GoPractice is an online training program for learning how to grow a customer base. Unlike some of the other edtech companies on this list, GoPractice doesn't offer a variety of courses in different areas. Instead, their 12-week course is designed to help startups find product market fit, launch, and scale their product. GoPractice includes lessons on product management, systems thinking, and data analytics.
BetterUp
5-year search growth: 600%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2013
Location: San Francisco, CA
Funding: $569.8M (Series E)
What they do: BetterUp is a coaching and training platform designed to boost employee engagement and productivity. Focused on enterprise companies, BetterUp is technically SaaS. But also delivers coaching services through its platform. The company is currently valued at $4.7 billion and has raised $600 million.
CuriosityStream
5-year search growth: 273%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2015
Location: Silver Spring, Maryland
Funding: $279.7M (Post-IPO Equity)
What they do: CuriosityStream is "Netflix for educational content", like documentaries and educational series. Plans range from $2.99/mo for HD video to $9.99 for 4K quality. CuriosityStream's advisory board includes notable names like Glenn Close, Don Henley, and Michio Kaku. In Q3 2021, CuriosityStream posted $18.7 million in revenue and grew their direct subscriber count by 50% over the past year.
Udemy
5-year search growth: 223%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2009
Location: San Francisco, CA
Funding: $311.4M (Secondary Market)
What they do: Udemy is a platform with 130,00 courses on dozens of different topics, from marketing to singing. In addition to à la carte course offerings, Udemy also has a "Udemy for Business" plan. This a subscription service that allows unlimited access to 5,000 courses.
Lingoda
5-year search growth: 900%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2013
Location: Berlin, Germany
Funding: $79.1M (Private Equity)
What they do: Lingoda is an online language school. The startup’s platform offers group or 1-to-1 classes in English, German, French, or Spanish. Also, Lingoda develops its own learning material in-house, which helps standardize the methodology. The company reports that they have 70,000 students and 1,400 teachers.
GoStudent
5-year search growth: 4900%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2016
Location: Vienna, Austria
Funding: $345.4M (Series C)
What they do: GoStudent is an online tutoring platform. The website helps find tutors across 14 different school subjects, from math to English. The site claims to have more than 10,000 students. In November 2021, GoStudent became the highest valued K through 12 education technology platform in Europe with a valuation of $1.6 billion.
Brainly
5-year search growth: 2000%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2009
Location: Kraków, Poland
Funding: $148.5M (Series D)
What they do: Brainly is a social learning network. Users can ask questions about a range of different school subjects. And help their peers in order to receive points. The number of Brainly users grew from 150 million users in 2019 to 350 million a year later.
Cuemath
5-year search growth: 300%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2013
Location: Bengaluru, India
Funding: $64.5M (Series C)
What they do: Cuemath operates a live-class platform for learning math and coding. Classes are held on Cuemath’s own platform with access to video calls and personalized worksheets. Parents can track the progress of their child on the app, which updates after each class.
Quizizz
5-year search growth: 1328%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2015
Location: Bangalore, India
Funding: $47M (Series B)
What they do: Quizizz is a gamified learning platform for children and employees. Teachers can create quizzes or use a library of existing content for student assignments. Employers can create polls or quizzes to support employee training (during presentations, onboarding, etc.). Reports are available in the product with instant feedback on class performance.
Photomath
5-year search growth: 470%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2014
Location: San Mateo, CA
Funding: $29M (Series B)
What they do: Photomath is a mobile application for solving mathematical equations instantly. The app uses the smartphone's camera to scan math problems and provide solutions with step-by-step explanations. Photomath has more than 220 million downloads from App Store and Google Play.
Mursion
5-year search growth: -38%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2014
Location: San Francisco, CA
Funding: $35.1M (Series B)
What they do: Mursion is a VR training platform for workplace training. Specifically, developing "emotional quotient" (EQ) skills. Their product delivers personalized simulations with the use of AI and human specialists. The company has offers training programs for leadership training, healthcare, and more.
SplashLearn
5-year search growth: 4900%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2010
Location: Gurugram, India
Funding: $25M (Series C)
What they do: SplashLearn is a gamified math learning product for elementary school children. Their content library includes more than 4,000 games designed to explain math concepts.
RangeForce
5-year search growth: 700%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2015
Location: Manassas, VA
Funding: $18M (Series A)
What they do: RangeForce operates a cloud-based learning platform for cybersecurity training. The startup's product offers a cyber attack simulator for employees to improve their skills. Managers can track the team's performance with reporting features.
CoachHub
5-year search growth: 99X+
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2018
Location: Berlin, Germany
Funding: $133M (Series B)
What they do: CoachHub is a B2B digital coaching provider. This startup creates personalized talent development programs for employees to hone their skills and delivers them remotely via video. Employees and HR teams can measure performance within the application. CoachHub has more than 2,500 business coaches in its network.
Conclusion
That completes this list of 21 Edtech startups with significant growth in 2021.
What stands out about many of these companies is the fact that they cater to completely different markets, from schoolchildren all the way up to executives that spend most of their time in B2B boardrooms.
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