EdTech Thoughts Weekend Reading - 7/16

Kahoot! goes private

Hello!

Good to be back after the July 4th holiday. As a result, this email is a full one - while much of the U.S. took a break, there was no shortage of news. If this roundup is cut off by your email provider, there should be a link to click to expand the post.

For newer readers: most editions do not run quite so long!

I am planning to take one more Sunday off this summer, likely the first weekend of August. More to come on this, but for now, on to the links!

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Funding / M&A

K12

• Kahoot! is being taken private for $1.7B. Woah! / Norway, Gamified Learning / Goldman Sachs, Kirkbi, General Atlantic (buyout)

• Mattilda raises $19M. / Mexico, Infrastructure Provider (payments) / GSV Ventures, FinTech Collective, Dila Capital

• VUIHOC raises $6M. / Vietnam, Content Provider / TNB Aura

• FreeWheelin raises $5.4M. / South Korea, Content Provider (Math) / Smilegate Investment, Altos Venture, DSC Investment

• Motrix raises $1.8M. / Brazil, School Provider / Grupo Agathos

• Teachy raises $1.6M. / Brazil, Instructor Tools / NXTP, Roble Ventures

• Zenith Learning raises $1.4M. / Singapore, Afterschool Centers / Trihill Capital, East Ventures, Orvel Ventures, One Leaf Capital, Ascend Angel Network

• Kidovo raises $1.2M. / US, Content Provider / Venture Highway, Good Capital

• Interval raises $275K. / India, Tutoring / Angels

• Newsela acquires Formative. / US, Content Development & Assessment

• TimeEdit acquires Vorsen. / Sweden, K12 Infrastructure & Curriculum

• Specialized Education Services acquires Lattice Educational Services. / US, Special Education Services

• PowerSchool acquires SchoolMessenger for $300M. / US, LMS & School Infrastructure Provider

• The Vistria Group acquires Really Great Reading Company. Really Great Reading Company is the actual name of the company, not my opinion (which, as always, is ~neutral) / US, Curriculum Developer / Vistria Group (buyout)

Higher Ed

• Leverage Edu raises $40M on $150M valuation. / India, International Recruitment / ETS

• Craydel raises $1M. / Kenya, School Infrastructure / Enza Capital, Future of Learning Fund, BriteGaze, Bisk Ventures, Tekton Ventures

• Sage Publications acquire Hubro Education. / US, Curriculum Developer & Games-based Learning

• Schultz Campus acquires Learnlet. / Denmark, Curriculum Developers

• Toprankers acquires Lex Guru. / India, Test Prep

• Tuition.io acquires Wiley’s Tuition Manager Business. Wiley continues to consolidate around publishing. / US, School Infrastructure

Workforce

• Secure Code Warrior raises €45M. / UK, Cybersecurity Education / Paladin Capital Group, Goldman Sachs, ForgePoint Capital

• Datapeople raises $13M. / US, Recruitment Platform / GreatPoint Capital, New Markets Venture Partners, First Round Capital, Nextview Ventures, Uncork Capital

• Loora raises $9.25M. / Israel, English Language Learning / Emerge, Kaedan Capital, Two Lanterns Venture Partners

• Kinnu raises $6.5M. / UK, Instructional Design / LocalGlobe, Cavalry Ventures, Spark Capital, Jigsaw

• Propel raises €2.5M. / Germany, Career Development Platform / No Such Ventures, APX, Golden Egg Check, Future of Learning Fund

• NodeFlair raises $2M. / Singapore, Recruitment Platform / 500 Global, Persol Global

• Doshi raises £1M. / UK, Content Provider (Financial Services) / Calm/Storm Ventures, Angels

• StellarUp raises $545K. / Amsterdam, Talent Development Platform

• LearnLaunch invests in Alchemy Vision, Ann, Kiddie Kredit, Lingco, and UpBrainery. / via PRNewswire

• Achieve Partners acquires Elentra. / US, Training Provider (Allied Health) / Achieve Partners (buyout)

• Talent Inc acquires Lloyd. / US, Talent Platforms

• Teal acquires OwnTrail. / US, Talent Platforms

• Archipel Academy acquires Quofox. / Netherlands, Corporate Training Providers

• Certus acquires Workforce180. / US, Training & Certification Providers

General Funding News

• H1 2023 EdTech Funding Market. Awesome summary of what this year’s funding market has looked like thus far. / via Reach Capital

• Emeritus looks to raises $100-150M. Unofficial report, so please read with several tablespoons of salt. That said, raising money to make acquisitions seems smart. / via LiveMint

• UpGrad in discussions to buy majority stake Udacity. 🤷‍♂️ / via EconomicTimes

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People Moves

• Matthew Wertz joins KnowFully Learning Group as CEO. / via PRNewswire

• Dave Gardner joins StraighterLine as CTO. / via PRNewswire

• Craig Maloney joins InStride as CEO, / via businesswire

• Aaron McCullough joins 2U as CPO. / via Yahoo Finance

• Arjun Mohan re-joins Byju’s as CEO of International. / via Moneycontrol

• Nelis Parts and Mark Moran join Fullstack Academy as CEO and CMO, respectively. / via businesswire

• Skill-Lync lays off 20% of workforce. / via Techcrunch

• FrontRow shuts down. / via Techcrunch

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Featured Organization - EdTech MBA

The EdTech MBA Community is launching its Fall 2023 Fellowship program to match edtech and future of work companies with top graduate student talent. Fall 2023 internships are remote and can be paid or unpaid!

The employer deadline to submit an internship role is this Friday, July 21. Read on for more information about the group and the fellowship:

What is the EdTech MBA Community? 

Founded in 2021, the community organizes 1200+ students to further engage with their interests within education technology. Members include current and former students from top business schools and graduate programs globally, such as Harvard Business School, Stanford GSB and Graduate School of Education, MIT Sloan, Wharton, Kellogg Northwestern, Chicago Booth, and London Business School. 

What is the EdTech MBA Community Fellowship?

The fellowship offers edtech employers the opportunity to hire high-performing graduate students for a ten-week project of critical importance to their company. Fellows spend 10 hours/week contributing to projects and operations. Last year, the Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 fellowships matched 60+ students to employers including upGrad, Amira Learning, Winnie, UBITS, and Preply. Fellows have worked across diverse functional groups including strategy, product management, business development, and GTM.

• Timeline: The Fall 2023 Fellowship will run for ten weeks between September and December 2023, with specific timing to be agreed upon by employer/fellow(s). You will receive the top candidates for your project proposal by August 7 and must make Fellowship offers by August 23.

• Compensation: Compensation (including paid vs. unpaid) is up to the employer; however, there may be a lower chance of a successful match for unpaid opportunities. Hourly compensation for fellows typically ranges between $30 - $60 / hour.

• Cost to participate: All employers who decide to hire a candidate for the fellowship will be responsible for a $499 placement fee. The community keeps this fee minimal to ensure that it is affordable to companies of all stages and does not deter them from applying.

• Process: The EdTech MBA Community Leadership team will screen and review applicants to determine the top candidates for your project proposal. Employers will interview the top applicants and make final hiring decisions. A few key details:

  • By submitting a project proposal, you are committing to interviewing at least 3 top candidates for your opportunity

  • If you determine that none of the top candidates are strong fits for your proposal after 3 interviews, you can pull out of the process. Otherwise, we ask that employers complete the process from start to finish

  • If you extend an offer to a candidate and the candidate accepts, you must let the EdTech MBA Community know and complete the provided hiring decision survey

• Next Steps: Please submit your project proposal by Friday, July 21 at 3 pm PST / 6 pm EST. Please submit a separate Google Form for each project proposal

You can learn more about the fellowship and what a successful proposal looks like here. Feel free to contact Hailey Carter (EdTech MBA Founder & President) at hailey@edtechmba.com with any questions.

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Links

Early Childhood

• Louisiana early-childhood funding set to plummet. The state used one-time pandemic relief aid to dramatically expand childcare coverage. Even with record funding from the state legislature, ongoing funding will only cover ~1/4 of previous number of enrollments. We are, unfortunately, about to see a lot more articles like this. / via The 74Million

  • Related, A Looming Crisis. / via EdSurge

• Boston may have cracked the code on universal PreK. / via HuffPost

K12

• Newark Public Schools puts Khanmigo to the test. / via New York Times

• With creative edit, Wisconsin governor raises school funding for 400 years. It is easy to be amused by this. It is harder to ask “why are we using our governance tools like this?”

  • Related, GOP House members propose 80% cut to Title I. Using education spending, whether proposed or enacted, to win political points is lame. / via K12 Dive

  • Related, Michael Bloomberg says US NAEP scores are an embarrassing bi-partisan failure. / via The Wall Street Journal

• Districts used 2,591 EdTech tools on average in 2022-23. A reminder to check with your local IT Officer on whether they prefer cash or bitcoin for their holiday bonuses. / via K12 Dive

• How real is the “Summer Slide”? / via Scientific American

• California debates Data Science vs. Algebra II. / via The Chronicle of Higher Education

  • Related, Jo Boaler is leading the math-instruction revolution. Critics say her claims don’t always add up. / via The Chronicle of Higher Education

  • Related, Algebra FTW? California reverses course on data science admission standard. / via Chronicle of Higher Education

• K12 Principals now qualify for DOL Registered Apprenticeship programs. / via K12 Dive

• California becomes 40th state to mandate dyslexia screening. / via Education Week

• 6 states now offer universal school meals. / via Education Week

  • Related, USDA to give states $1.3B to purchase school meals. / via K12 Dive

• Where did Moms for Liberty come from? / via The Free Press

  • Related, Moms for Liberty flexes its muscles and faces pushback. / via The Hechinger Report

Higher Ed

• Inflation will continue to batter colleges through fiscal 2024. / via Higher Ed Dive

• ACE plans to introduce new Carnegie Classification methodology this year. / via Higher Ed Dive

• Coursera partners with Binance to do blockchain courses. Maybe | not | the | most | advisable | course | partner, but at least its not FTX? / via Binance

• Is there a future for US campuses in China? / via Inside Higher Ed

• More universities joining the European Universities network. I’m looking to learn more about what this network is, please reach out if you know something about it! / via The PIE News

• What is college for? No particularly novel information here, but a good primer on the debate, with supporting data. / via The New York Times

• American confidence in higher ed hits new low. / via Inside Higher Ed

• Australian University vice-chancellor questions Australia’s embrace of microcredentials after successful pilot of microcredential program. No one saw that one coming. / via Times Higher Education

• Mexican universities urged to capitalize on nearshoring boom. / via Times Higher Education

SCOTUS

The one thing that Goldman Sachs, the Education Department, and the Supreme Court agree on? That Summer Fridays are for news-bombs, not beach days.

• With Supreme Court decision, college admissions could become more subjective. / via New York Times

  • Related, with end of Affirmative Action, Adversity Scores may become the new tool. / via New York Times

  • Related, as Affirmative Action ends, HBCUs wait or plan for the fallout. / via Inside Higher Ed

• US Supreme Court ends Biden student debt relief plan. / via NPR

  • Related, President Biden responds to Supreme Court decision with new plans for student debt relief. / via Higher Ed Dive

  • Related, Biden-Harris administration to provide 804,000 borrowers with $39 Billion in automatic loan forgiveness as a result of fixes to Income Driven Repayment plans. / via US Department of Education

Workforce

• Guild begins offering student debt service as a benefit via partnership with Candidly. / via businesswire

EdTech

• Byju’s: the unravelling of India’s most-valued start-up. / via The BBC

  • Related, Byju’s is falling apart. Who wore it better? / via ETCH

  • Related, Byju’s in discussions to sell stake in Aakash. / via Inc42

  • Related, Prosus, Byju’s largest shareholder, cuts internal valuation of company to $5.1B (~1/5 of 2021 peak) while company seeks $1B in fresh funding / via Techcrunch and Bloomberg

• A map of generative AI tools for education. / Shoutout Laurence Holt on Medium

  • Related, Minerva Project’s report on Key Strategies for integrating Artificial Intelligence into Higher Education. / via Minerva Project

• Duolingo replaces TV ads with TikTok posts. / via Wall Street Journal

• Edutainment is not learning. / Thanks Bhaumik for sending, shoutout Gian for writing

• EdTech Malaise. / Shoutout Michael Feldstein at e-Literate

• I’m losing confidence in advocating for a laissez-faire approach to AI use in/around the classroom (at least in the short term).

  • The Homework Apocalypse. Hyperbolic title, but helpful, data-informed read. / shoutout

    Ethan Mollick
    and the
    One Useful Thing
    newsletter

  • Tyton Partners’ 2023 Time for Class survey flagged preventing student cheating as the #1 instructional challenge for teachers. / via Tyton Partners

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This email, EdTech Thoughts Weekend Reading, is the free sister publication of the EdTech Thoughts Weekly Update. It provides links to the week’s EdTech Funding, M&A, People moves, and a curated list of Links to relevant industry news. If you enjoyed this edition, I hope you will subscribe and/or forward to your friends!

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Disclosure - September 2022