Education Technology
Article | July 27, 2022
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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Education Technology
Article | July 20, 2022
When you think of a playground what do you think of? Swings, slides, roundabouts?
Many years ago, these would be constructed without too much thought gone into the risks to ordinary children falling or losing grip. I have several siblings. We all sustained injuries at the local park. One fell off the high slide and lost her front teeth. One slid forward on the slippery rocking horse and had stitches in her chin. Another caught her foot on the roundabout as she tried to jump off when another child was pushing it too fast for her liking. I could go on.
Today playgrounds have to meet the European safety standards and safety surfacing has to be installed under swings, slides, and roundabouts. This must adhere to the current standard for impact absorbing playground surfaces.
It is good that playgrounds today meet these safety standards.
Yet. If your child is unable to walk, how will they get on that swing, that roundabout, that slide?
More and more children with disabilities are being educated in mainstream schools. Parents no longer think that a disability should stop their child from accessing the local playground. What is available to students with disabilities in these playgrounds?
Special schools have had to cater for students with disabilities when planning a playground but do ordinary schools? It is an act of discrimination if a child with a disability cannot enjoy being out on the playground as much as the able bodied child.
There was a time when the only wheelchair swing took ages to set up for a child to enjoy just 5 minutes of swing time. Anbakgard in Denmark have designed a wheelchair swing that takes just two minutes to set up and has additional seating for peers to join the experience. To see one in action go to https://YouTube.be/vh4NSOTULdA.
There are roundabouts that include a safety space for wheelchairs and slides that allow adults to accompany children on them for support. There are outdoor trampolines specifically for wheelchairs. There are birds nest swings that allow students with mild physical disabilities more space to enjoy the vestibular sensory stimulation. There are many sites that now provide play equipment to suit all kinds of needs. One such site is https://www.gljones-playgrounds.co.uk who provided our school with a lot of its play equipment.
There are climbing walls specifically geared to wheelchair users. Visit http://www.rockclimbingcentral.comto see the benefits to building muscle strength, endurance, strength, agility and flexibility.
When our children have missed out so much on play during the pandemic it is important that we provide all children with their right to play by ensuring that playgrounds everywhere are inclusive.
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Education Technology
Article | July 15, 2022
2020-21 proved pivotal for online learning technologies. The sudden shift to remote classrooms pressed educators and parents to emphasize environments conducive to anywhere learning, creating anywhere classrooms everywhere. Classroom management has become integral to these new settings where learning has to be an extension of the physical classroom. Virtual classrooms may still be in their nascent stage, but this is the time to test better ways and establish smart classrooms that are flexible, advanced, and encourage knowledge retention.
What Makes a Classroom Smart?
A smart classroom will make extensive use of technology to engage and immerse learners. The tools will be designed to generate interactions between educators, learners, and parents through multiple media. For instance, laptops and tablets will complement or even replace books, and a significant portion of the curriculum will require online tools to implement the study plan. According to TeachThought experts, there are eight components to a smart classroom technology stack:
Integration of the digital and physical space in learning
Live feedback from teachers
Diverse technology usage, like smartphone apps and Wi-Fi
Workflows that are not linear
Customized learning paths and environments
Transitioning lessons with no beginning or end
A new approach to delivering learning
Availability of an immense amount of data
Managing a Smart Classroom
Traditional classroom management thrives on the ability of educators and students to create a robust learning environment that promotes an exchange of ideas and the creation of a learning ecosystem that is conducive to creativity and productivity. Managing a smart classroom with or without technology is about keeping learners engaged and focused on the learning outcomes.
A technologically-driven smart classroom only aids learners to develop self-initiative and act independently when it comes to presenting ideas and projects. Smart classroom management will focus on three things, namely: lesson and group organization; instructional approach, and optimization of technology and time. Passive learning isn’t something every student will prefer, so digital smart classrooms offer them the avenue to initiate learning, actively learning and get involved in class forums.
Smart classroom management also comprises addressing technology-based hurdles for accessibility and technicalities. For instance, issues like cyberbullying, data security, ransomware, and a breakdown in internet access can hamper lessons and cause interruptions.
What Are the Best Practices to Follow?
In traditional classroom management, the emphasis on student-teacher association is paramount. The point is to establish relationships, define boundaries and help identify the students’ strong and weak points in order to help them thrive. Educators and school administrators can follow a range of best practices to get the most out of smart classroom technologies. Here are some best practices to follow:
Do a thorough check of whether all technology is working as it should
Set a contingency plan for when something goes wrong
Determine protocols for providing students with the help and point of contact they need when something isn’t working
Set collaboration guidelines to avoid unnecessary back and forth
Provide teachers and students with an avenue to engage offline as well
Take regular screen breaks
What’s Next?
Today, technology is a playground of the youth and even the youngest school students are well versed with the use of technology. It is only a matter of leveraging this familiarity and affinity and ensuring that learners are making the most of these skills. Embracing a smart classroom fully will take tome but the possibility to create a springboard for richer learning experience using it is immense.
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Article | August 26, 2020
How do we know you love it? Because the internet is now full of really awesome 3D-printable cases and add-ons our community has created in order to use their High-Quality Camera out and about…or for Octoprint…or home security…or SPACE PHOTOGRAPHY, WHAT?! We thought it would be fun to show you some of 3D designs we’ve seen pop up on sites like Thingiverse and MyMiniFactory, so that anyone with access to a 3D printer can build their own camera too!
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