ETCH Weekend Reading 8/13

Weeks of 7/31 - 8/13

Aug 14, 2023

Hello!

I’m a new dad! Please don’t hold it against me if the newsletter is a little, ahh, punchier for the next month or two as our household adjusts to a new sleep schedule. By this time next summer, you can expect the dad jokes to be flying fast and furious.

Three announcements before we get to the links:

Reader survey: we’ve almost hit our goal for feedback survey participation! If you haven’t already filled out the survey, it would mean a lot to me. Takes only 3 minutes!
Are you hiring? I am building a ETCH jobs community and looking for pilot customers to provide feedback on the product. Please let me know if you’re open to chatting about it.
I am thinking about offering a dedicated Funding + M&A newsletter feed with more analysis of each deal. However, I need some help to make it great. If you would be interested in writing company analyses with me, please reach out.

That’s all for now!

Funding / M&A

K12

Daybreak raises $13M / US, K12 Mental Health / Union Square Ventures, Lux Capital, Lightspeed Ventures Partners, Maven Ventures, Y Combinator
Yakili raises $3M / Cameroon, K12 Curriculum / Undisclosed
Kaleidoscope raises $2M / US, School Fundraising / Rally Ventures, 3X5 Ventures
Cerebry raises $1M / Singapore, K12 Curriculum / Ascend Vietname Ventures, Pentathalon Ventures
YaSchools raises $600K / Saudi Arabia, Student Finance / Angels
Inspera acquires Crossplag / Norway, Assessments
MyFirstApp acquires 10Monkeys / Sweden, K12 Curriculum
Level Data acquires Glimpse K12 / US, K12 Software Infrastructure

Higher Ed

GoStudent raises $95M in debt and equity (amounts non-disclosed) / Austria, Tutoring / Deutsche Bank, Left Lane Capital, DN Capital, Tencent, Prosus, DST, Coatue, Softbank Vision Fund 2
Auxilo raises $57M / India, Student Finance / Tata Capital, Trifecta Leaders Fund, Xponentia Opportunities Fund, ICIC Bank
Fizz raises $25M / US, Social Network / Owl Ventures, NEA
Sallie Mae acquires Scholly / US, Student Finance
Ascent acquires Ampersand / US, Student Finance (Professional Development)

Workforce

One Model raises $41M / US, People Analytics / Riverwood Capital
Dispirz raises $30M / India, Corporate Upskilling / Lumos Capital, 360 ONE Asset, KAE Capital, KOIS, Dallas Venture Capital
Intellum raises $25M / US, Enterprise LMS / Guidepost Growth Equity (also owner of ClassWallet)
Unstop raises $5M / India, Jobs Community / Coursera, Myanvi, Venture Catalysts, 9Unicorns, Claret Capital
Flo Recruit raises $4.2M / US, Recruiting Software / LiveOak Partners, Moneta Ventures
Grasp raises €3.6M / UK, Adult Learning / Balderton Capital
Zick raises €500K / Ireland, Corporate Upskilling / Zanichelli Ventures
LMS365 acquires Weekly10 / Denmark, Enterprise LMS
PeopleGrove acquires jobZology / US, Career Pathways

People Moves

Jim Brigadier joins Ready Education as CEO / via Yahoo Finance
Daniele Grassi joins General Assembly as President / via Yahoo Finance
Mike Trimarchi joins Edmentum as CFO / via Newswire
Paper lays off 106 / via Business Insider
Chan Zuckerberg Initiative lays off 48 members of education team / via 74Million
Pluralsight lays off an undisclosed number of employees / via Salt Lake Tribune
LingoAce lays off “hundreds” / via TechInAsia
Pearson Online lays off ~half of team without severance / via On EdTech

Announcements

KaiPod Learning opens applications for second Catalyst program

I would love for ETCH to be the place companies come to announce Funding events, M&A, and other strategic moves. To make an announcement via ETCH, email me! matt at etch dot club

Links

Early Childhood

Economists start advocating for universal childcare to fix workforce shortages. As someone who is about to start paying more for childcare than rent, this would be nice. / via Axios
- It seems my scenario is also not exceptional, as the majority of parents spend 20% or more of household income on childcare. / via CNBC
- Which makes this report showing that high quality child care provides long term benefits all the more important. / via Hechinger Report
More research on the effect of screen time on young children. / via Hechinger Report

K12

Once a big player, Teach for America tries to regain its footing. / via EdWeek
Massachusetts becomes 8th state to adopt universal school meals. Community Schools and/or School Meals are the strongest current counterweight to The Great Unbundling. / via K12 Dive
- Related, more research on the impact of universal school meals. / via Chalkbeat
Do state takeovers help improve school districts? / via Hechinger Report
Philadelphia charter school provides a model for what year-round schooling could look like. / via Chalkbeat
To survive teacher shortage, New Jersey to allow retired teachers to return to the classroom for up to 2 years while retaining their pensions. / via 74Million
- While Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, and California turn to upskilling bus drivers and other school staff to solve the same problem. Seems more long-term sustainable? / via Hechinger Report

Higher Ed

Colleges spend like there’s no tomorrow to cover up a lack of differentiated vision. Fancy facilities are great, but to what end? / via Wall Street Journal
- Related, America’s elite colleges are also facing a housing crisis. The business model of elite schools is not educating undergraduates. Despite missing this point, this article does a great (if unintentional) job showing how elite schools are investing in more profitable pursuits. / via Bloomberg
  - If you don’t believe me, ask Middlebury. Vermont’s finest is offering juniors and seniors $10K to ski anywhere but Snowbowl (take the fall and winter semesters off). / via Higher Ed Dive
- Not unrelated, “college” sports continue to unravel. The book on the end of college sports will be a story of greed, not about creating a positive environment for amateur athletics. / via the Athletic
Massachusetts passes free community college plan for those over 25. / via Higher Ed Dive
Don’t double Pell Grants, disconnect them from tuition. I don’t know that this article provides the answer, but I am interested in hypotheses for how to break the cycle of rising tuition costs at universities. / via RealClear Education
[Video] Postsecondary commission proposes new accreditation model to House subcommittee on education. Tired: complaining about accreditors. Wired: starting a new accreditor to compete against the ones you don’t like. / via Postsecondary Commission
- Related, Calbright receives DEAC accreditation. Calbright is not out of the woods yet, but their turnaround has been impressive. / via Higher Ed Dive
The most important story that has never been told in the business of education is that of Laureate’s rise and fall (and rebirth?). I would prefer a book, but the Google Translate version of this Norwegian interview with the company’s current CEO will at least whet your appetite. / via Khrono

Workforce

The new hires of 2023 are unprepared for work. “The pass rates on national certifications and assessment exams taken by engineers, office workers, soldiers and nurses have all fallen.” I could do without the anecdotes about teenage retail workers not working hard, but the rest seems bad. / via Wall Street Journal
- Not exactly consolation, but it looks like the youths are struggling to work worldwide. China’s youth unemployment rate hits 21%. / via New York Times

EdTech

Chegg partners with Scale AI to build “proprietary LLMs”. Chegg had a decent quarter, but still has a long road ahead. This partnership may help, but it is impossible to assess without a clear definition of “proprietary,” which is linked to the expected expense of building these LLMs. / via businesswire
Can language learning help stave off dementia? For the biohackers out there, it is now recommended that you do your Duolingo AFTER your morning walk and cold plunge but BEFORE your sauna. Preferably with a cup of MCT-infused adaptogen coffee.1 / via Wall Street Journal

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!