Building network effects
These companies create value by digitising core processes in teaching, learning, and their administration. They sustain value by building large networks of interdependent users and content suppliers and creating large, valuable data sets about those users. Once at scale, these networks and data sets make such companies extremely difficult to displace.
What they do
Wonde is a data integration platform that sits between edtech suppliers and education providers.
Administrators take control of how sensitive school data is used and developers get a single point of access to relevant school systems, saving time and money on integration and maintenance. A year after launch, Wonde is available in 85% of UK schools.
CO-INVESTOR:Richmond Group
Visit Wonde
What they do
Peergrade simplifies peer feedback in school and university classrooms, reducing the time spent on grading without compromising on quality.
Peer assessment helps students get better feedback and creates a more engaging learning experience. Peergrade makes the process simple and transparent, providing teachers unique insights. It is used in every university in Denmark.
Y-Combinator, Nordic Makers, Project A, Learn Capital
What they do
Bibliotech is the Spotify for textbooks, giving students and libraries on-demand content from the world’s largest academic publishers.
Physical copies of core textbooks are expensive or scarce. Bibliotech is the only company that has partnerships with every major UK publisher along with full-text search across every book. Students end up spending twice as much time in Bibliotech as they do on Snapchat.
Oxford Sciences Innovation
What they do
Morressier is a platform to share, discuss, and evaluate research-in-progress, bringing the world of academic conferences online.
Academic conferences are central to how researchers share and discuss early findings, but they remain resolutely analogue. Morressier makes organizing conferences easy, centralizing communications and surfacing the stand-out sessions from each event.
Redalpine, Jan Reichelt (Mendeley)
What they do
Yoto is a clever speaker for kids that provides screen-free access to a rich library of curated audio content.
Parents are increasingly concerned about the effect of screen use on young children. Yoto gives kids control over what songs, stories, or learning content they listen to and when, with a carefully curated library of cards that adapts and grows with children over time.
What they do
Aula is an intuitive communication platform that provides a modern alternative to learning management systems.
Ubiquitous and clunky learning management systems focus on record-keeping at the expense of the learning experience. Aula’s conversational platform and ecosystem of integrations makes communication the lynchpin of university study, improving student engagement and satisfaction.
NordicMakers
What they do
Pobble is a place where primary school teachers can share their students’ writing with a global audience, giving it a real purpose.
Children often lack the confidence to write freely. Pobble introduces them to a supportive global community and saves teachers hours thanks to a rich library of lesson plans. The result is an improvement of up to 2x in expected student progress at hundreds of schools.
Jay Varkey
What they do
Eedi’s homework and teaching tool uses diagnostic questions to help teachers pinpoint gaps in students’ knowledge at scale.
Time spent marking by hand is a key reason behind backbreaking teacher workloads. Eedi automates the assignment and assessment of homework and shows why students make mistakes, not just when, while saving an average secondary school teacher ~8 hours a week.
Founders Factory
What they do
Edurio is a survey platform for non-academic indicators of education quality, like school climate and culture.
Edurio collects and analyzes data about school performance that goes beyond familiar metrics like test results, so institutions can focus on what needs to be tracked, not just what is easiest. It works equally well for individual schools and school systems across entire countries.
What they do
Unibuddy connects prospective students with the University's student ambassadors online.
Unibuddy changes the way universities attract, inform and recruit students by placing peer-to-peer interactions at the core of its admission process.
What they do
Differentiated instruction AI platform for teachers to optimise student outcomes through group-based learning.
A 4-woman executive team with powerful technical, product and pedagogical experience. Teacher demand for differentiated learning can only be met at scale with technology.
Y combinator
Content unbundling
These companies create value by moving beyond the ‘one size fits all’ model, giving consumers or employers access to education in a modular way and using technology to deliver it at scale with consistent quality. They sustain value by building trusted education brands that become household names in certain niche categories.
What they do
Primo’s wooden toys help children learn the fundamentals of coding through screen-free, tactile play.
With the award-winning, friendly Cubetto robot children are empowered to discover the principles of coding for themselves, helping them develop their curiosity and creativity. Primo have struck a chord – their $1.59m Kickstarter was the most successful crowdfunding campaign ever for an edtech product.
CO-INVESTOR:Neon Adventures, IBIS Capital
Visit Primo
What they do
Lingumi is a methodology that helps pre-schoolers learn English even when their parents don’t speak the language themselves.
Children between the ages of 2 and 5 can learn a foreign language as easily as their first one. Lingumi’s playful curriculum, based on academic research, is designed to help children make the most of that critical period without relying on guidance from parents.
Local Globe
What they do
EasyPeasy a mobile app that encourages parents and preschoolers to bond through positive play and develop the skills children need for school.
Around half of all children in the UK, most of them from disadvantaged backgrounds, start school without crucial learning skills. An independent academic study has shown that by teaching struggling parents simple games through its app, EasyPeasy helps close that gap.
ClearlySo
What they do
Project-based online education platform for Latin American and Spanish creative professionals.
The absolute majority of courses online are in English. This means that most of the world’s population has no access to them. Crehana’s Spanish courses make project-based learning a reality for digital professionals in Latin America and demonstrably improve their job prospects.
Howzat Partners
What they do
Edacy teaches African graduates the hard and soft skills that they lack and large multinational employers are looking for.
90% of business leaders in Africa experience skill shortages. Edacy unlocks the African job market for partners like Unicef through Ivy League-level online tuition and on-the-job training for local graduates. Every programme participants to date has received a job offer.
Hambo Perks
What they do
Pi-top produces Raspberry Pi-based modular computer kits for students to build and learn to code on.
Endorsed by Raspberry Pi and Steve Wozniak, pi-top kits give students a sense of ownership and pride when they build their own computers. The kits are bundled with an education-specific OS and apps to bring STEAM curriculum content into every classroom.
Hambro Perks
What they do
Eggbun is a chatbot that guides users through learning Asian languages like Korean, Chinese, and Japanese.
Eggbun’s playful chatbot character, Lanny, learns about users’ interests and understands their progress to suggest new bite-sized lessons. By creating a ‘cybertutor’ who guides and motivates as well as teaches users, Eggbun are reaching over 1m user through its mobile apps.
Primer Ventures (Korea)
What they do
LIS is building a new university that will give students the skills to go and tackle some of society's most complex problems.
Students will put their learnings to work through paid work placements at some of the UK’s top organisations including Virgin, McKinsey and the Met Police. The LIS curriculum will cut across disciplinary boundaries, equipping students with knowledge and methods from across the arts, sciences and humanities.
What they do
Play-based STEAM learning and resources, developing scientific thinking skills in 3-8 year olds.
Comprehensive pedagogically grounded curriculum responding to a strong demand to inspire children with science at an early age. Fast international growth, successfully exporting the Finnish education brand.
KSI Education, Reaktor Ventures