Edtech Insiders

Our guest this week: 

Alberto Arenaza, Edtech Insider Extraordinaire and Cofounder of  Transcend Network and author of the Transcend Newsletter

Featured Resource

Check out the amazing new Edtech Dash with over 25,000 Edtech companies
   - Brighteye & Dealroom release open access EdTech dashboard

Topics covered this week:

1. Higher Ed & Government
   • House passes College Transparency Act
   • Free community college is “Off the Table”
2. Personalized Learning gets (Social) Emotional
   • CZI connects students & teachers via “Along”
   • Promise of personalized learning for EdTech startups
     1. Wayfinder
     2. Learnfully 
     3. Empowerly
3. 2022 EdTech Valuations- Ripe for Repricing?
   • EdTech hits a steep learning curve
4. Edtech Acquisitions
   • Cengage Group to acquire Infosec for $190.8 million
   • Studytube acquired Springest & closed $30m series B
   • GoStudent acquired Seneca Learning & Tus Media Group
   • Brightchamps acquired Education 10x
   • Aviso Retention acquired by Watermark Insights after 10 years of bootstrapping
   • Modern Campus acquired Signal Vine
5. Book Bans Threaten Intellectual Freedom
   • Voters of Tomorrow to distribute copies of ‘Maus’ and ‘Beloved’ in Texas and Virginia  

This week, we sat down with Jonathan Finkelstein, CEO of Credly, which was acquired by Pearson this week for $200m, and with Rhys Spence, lead author of the recent Europe Edtech Funding Report 2022.

HEADLINES:

1. COVID beat
 Interesting linkedin post by a teacher caught our eye. There was also a series of articles on Edsurge and elsewhere about life as a COVID principal, pandemic brain science, and student mental health.  Big theme of ‘no way to go back’ .

2. Project Kitty Hawk takes off

UNC’s $97M Plan to Reach Adult Online Learners hopes to become an alternative to traditional OPM providers and a way to create 120 online programs over the next years,. 

3. New data shows Gen Z prefers alt pathways for higher ed

A Survey of American high schoolers found that:

• 45% prefer programs they can complete in two years or less—a significant shift from pre-pandemic levels. 
• Nearly 70% want on-the-job training like apprenticeships and internships during their college experience.
• 86% of those surveyed say they feel pressure—from parents, teachers, and society at large—to pursue that specific pathway, even if it’s not the right choice for them

4. Funding Rounds

• Spain-based Domestika, an online platform for creatives, received a $100m round at a $1.3b valuation, becoming the latest Edtech Unicorn.
• Fourthrev, a UK-based career accelerator program, announced an $8m Series A.
• Singapore-based college application platform Cialfo received a $40m funding round.
• Indian Upskilling platform Scaler Academy received a $55 million funding round
• Indian edtech Wise raised $5m
• Arabic “​​EdTech platform Playbook announces that it has closed pre-seed funding with $700,000. 

Post-Recording Updates:

• Studytube acquires Springest & closes $30m series B
• GoStudent acquires Seneca Learning & Tus Media Group

Eva Brown is the author of “The Next Right Step: From Teaching to Edtech”. Eva was a classroom teacher for many years before transitioning into Edtech with Scholastic, HMH and now at Formative. Eva runs a consultancy at Eva Brown Consulting to help transitioning teachers take the next right step in their careers.

Recommended Resources for Transitioning Teachers

• Jeff Patterson, CEO of gaggle shares weekly lists of edtech job openings.
• Linkedin Learning Courses on Edtech (such as this or this)
• Coursera courses on online learning (such as this, this or this)
• HolonIQ's overview of Edtech and their 2021 Global Learning Landscape

Edtech Job Boards

• Edsurge Job Boards
• Reach Capital Edtech Job Board
• Owl Ventures Edtech Job Board
• GSV Edtech Job Board
• Learn Capital Job Board
• Brighteye Edtech Portfolio Openings (Europe)
• JoinEdtech.org

Topics This Week:

1) Labor Shortages Loom in K12

• Almost half of all teachers are thinking of leaving their jobs
• Particularly hurting struggling readers

2) College Enrollments Dropping, Higher Ed Making Digital Shifts

• Colleges have seen the biggest drop in enrollment in 50 years 
• Some are adapting to a new future with Hybrid College Classrooms 

3) School Districts Getting more Cyberattacks and Ransomware

• Cyberattacks on school districts getting more frequent across the country
• Georgia to provide cybersecurity platform to all schools
• Experts are recommending more preparation and more attention be paid despite limited resources
• The 2020 K12 Cybersecurity Act is intended to help

4) Mergers and Acquisitions

• Soapbox labs partners with McGraw Hill
• Literati Acquires Follett Book Fairs 

5) Omicron Stimulus Money Being spent on Virtual Tutoring

• Back to School, but Still Learning Online (NYT)

NOTE: A few important things happened this week after recording, which can be read below and will be covered in next week's episode.

1) Spain-based Domestika, an online platform for creatives, received a $100m round at a $1.3b valuation, becoming the latest Edtech Unicorn.
2) Fourthrev, a UK-based career accelerator program, announced an $8m Series A.
3) Brighteye Ventures put out its 2022 European Edtech Funding Report. Breakdown from Brighteye head of research here.
4) Singapore-based college application platform Cialfo received a $40m funding round.
5) Singapore-based personalized coaching and mentoring platform Ascend Now received a $2.1m seed round.

In this Week in Edtech, we cover:

1) Lawsuit Alleging Price-Fixing at Top Universities
- NY Times

2) Phil Hill's Coverage of the Shrinking Non-Profit University Ecosystem
- Phil on Edtech

3) India cracks down on OPM providers in Higher Ed
- Times of India
- Economic Times

4) LEAD Becomes the First Indian Edtech Unicorn of 2022 with a $100m round
- The News Minute
- Techcrunch

5) Around the World
- US: GSV Elite 200 Edtech companies Released
- UK: MyTutor acquires coding platform Fire Tech
- Africa: Egyptian Edtech Orcas Raises Round,  $10M Future of Learning fund from Future Africa
- LATAM: Ubits raises $25m to create the Netflix of corporate training

6) Education Labor Force
- 74Million: Report shows that there is no 'big quit' in education, but specialized positions are still hard to fill

We also play a game of 'fill in the blank' with questions like "University Presidents should feel _________ given the barrage of negative recent headlines about legacy Higher Ed" and take questions live from the On Deck Ed Tech fellowship.

Stanford education professor Mitchell Stevens on developing a science for working learners for the NSF to improve research and outcomes for those outside of the traditional higher education system.

Mitchell Stevens is a sociologist of higher education at Stanford University and the co-director of the Stanford Pathways Lab with John Mitchell.

Report Links

• Here is a link to the full report
• Read the list of contributors to the report.
• Sign up for a live event on January 19th to discuss the report (also here).

Resources Recommended by Professor Stevens

1. The Education Trap, Christina Groeger
2. Teaching Machines: The History of Personalized Learning, Audrey Watters

This Week in Edtech, we focus on

1) Labor Shortages and COVID Contingency Plans
- California Community Colleges Go Online, along with most UC Campuses and Duke
- Staff shortages led to Louisville's school district going back online

2) Edtech VC Firm Owl Ventures Launches 3 Edtech Funds worth over $1B
- Crunchbase
- WSJ
- Economic Times (India)

3) Y Combinator Announced It Would Offer $500K to Companies
- This raises the bar for early stage funding
- New Edtech Accelerators are popping up, like ODX, Workshop Venture Partners, Blue Meridian and  Sesame Ventures

4) Around the World
- Europe: Edtech unicorn GoStudent became the highest valued Edtech in Europe with a $300M+ Round
- China: New Oriental Revealed 60,000 Layoffs and 80% Revenue Loss (Bloomberg)
- India: Inc42's Yearly report came out reporting $4.7 Bn in Indian Edtech investing

5) The GSV Edtech 150 was released.

NOTE: After this episode was recorded, a few more interesting developments occurred:

1) Indian edtech LEAD became the first Unicorn of 2022
2) Ellucian bought CampusLogic
3) Modern Campus bought SignalVine
4) School Loan Provider Navient Lost a $1.85B Lawsuit
5) Chinese language Edtech Lingoace completed a $100M funding round

Edquity is an emergency financial assistance platform for college students that is distributing $50 million per quarter. 

Founder David Helene is a college financing wunderkind who is committed to keeping low-income college students enrolled; in this episode, we dive deep into how edtech can help support equity in higher education.

Resources that David recommends:

• Paying the Price by Sara Goldrick-Rab
• Automating Inequality by Virginia Eubanks

Ben and Alex discuss How US Schools are Opening and Closing and Opening, The Merging of Edtech Platforms with Content Providers,  The Mental Health Crisis in Schools, Chegg's Lawsuit by Investors, and Edtech's Huge Year and the Global Landscape Shift.

We also predict the number of IPOs and Unicorns in 2022, look at the LatAm Edtech market, and do a Deep Dive on GSV Partner Luben Pampaoulov's Medium post on how we get to the first trillion dollar Edtech company through LTV.

RESOURCES:

• NYTimes: "With No School in Sight, Chicago Families Grit Their Teeth" 
• Axios: Blackbaud buys Everfi for $750 million, in ESG push
• Edsurge: To Help Fight a Mental Health Crisis in Schools, Community Groups Step In
• Inside Higher Ed: Chegg Accused of Cheating Investors 
• HolonIQ's Global Edtech Venture Capital Report

In this special episode, Alex and Ben Kornell of Cambium Education, Altschool and Altitude Learning talk about some of the major trends in Edtech in the milestone year of 2021 and predictions for 2022.

Trends covered include:

- COVID Fueled Disruption and Edtech Acceleration
- Labor Shortages in Schools and Teacher Burnout
- Nationwide Mental Health Crises for School-Age Children
- Major Edtech Mergers and Acquisitions
- Edtech Matures as a Technology Sector (From Edu-slow to Techno-speed)
- New Edtech Unicorns and IPOs
- Employers Dip Their Toes and Start to Change the Center of Gravity for Edtech
- Rise of Indian and European Edtech and Slowdown in Chinese Edtech
- The rise of CBCs and the "Educreator" (Teacher-Influencer-Creator Economy)
- The Future of the Gap Year