Before diving into this month’s news, a huge thank you to everyone who has supported European Edtech News! The first edition of this newsletter was sent to nearly 700 subscribers on 23rd June and generated almost 2,500 views with an open rate of 60%. We’re delighted with the response and will continue to give you all you need to know about the fast-growing European Edtech scene.
Having said that, as this email hits your inbox much of European Edtech is either on holiday or about to go away, so we’ll keep this snappy!
And judging from HolonIQ’s Global EdTech Funding 2021 - Half Year Update, European Edtech businesses certainly deserve a break, with investment levels outperforming 2020’s levels in just the first six months of the year.
Clearly Covid-19 has massively impacted “the way the world learns”, but in a recent article for EU-Startups.com, Christopher Pommerening, Founder of Spanish Edtech, Learnlife, identifies three reasons why he believes the shift is permanent and that “there’s no going back.”
Edtech is going mainstream, national and big-budget
Educators are on board
Tech innovation and learning innovation are finding symbiosis.
The European Edtech Alliance is committed to ensuring that European Edtech continues to flourish for the long-term. Our consortium of 23 national Edtech trade associations and innovation cluster is working to achieve that across Europe.
As always, we’d love to hear your feedback on this newsletter, so please just reply to this email or comment below. Please also share it with your networks and across social media. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter here.
Thank you for reading and enjoy your holidays!
The next issue of European Edtech News will be in your inbox on 18th August 2021.
Produced by the team at the European Edtech Alliance.
NEWS FROM OUR MEMBER ASSOCIATIONS
FUND-RAISING
Danish Edtech, Actee, lands a significant investment to fund their German expansion. (Link)
Sparkmind’s EdTech-focused VC fund reaches €55 million. (Link)
London-based Unibuddy raises $20 million in a Series B round to expand its peer-to-peer university recruitment platform. (Link)
K-12
Clio confirm that Pernille Wendel Mehl will be their new CEO, starting in the Autumn (Link).
Eduten sign a deal to bring their digital learning platform to 45,000 Vietnamese public school students. Their platform is now used in over 40 countries. (Link)
Products from Finnish companies Arkki International, HEI Schools, New Nordic School and Kide Science are being used in Croatia, Malaysia, India and Mexico, respectively. (Link)
Gaptain and five key partners launch the Segureskola programme to educate and protect children from the risks associated with the internet, mobile phones and social networks (Link). They also won the fifth edition of the SEK Lab Edtech Accelerator.
Plume, a K12 startup founded by a former French teacher, raise €2.2M to help children write at school and at home. The fundraising will enable the business to expand globally. (Link)
Schools in England are being asked to provide information about their in-school mobile phone policies and behaviour strategies as part of a six-week consultation. (Link)
POST SECONDARY
42 school is a famous, free, French college-level computer programming school with a peer-to-peer learning environment. Founded by Xavier Niel, they have signed a partnership with the French Ministry of Education to help public schools raise awareness about digital and tech culture. This is an important step forward for Edtech in France. (Link)
CORPORATE LEARNING
Edflex, the "Netflix for learning" that supports the skills development of employees by giving them the best content, raise €5M to grow and go international. Since 2016, more than 500,000 corporate learners worldwide have used the solution. (Link)
OTHER MEMBER UPDATES
The ATP (Association of Test Publishers) will host a virtual 2021 Europe-ATP Conference on 27th - 29th September 2021.
The Bett Show returns to London’s ExCel in 2022. We hope to see you there!
England's Department for Education and The Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual) launch an exams 2022 consultation. This proposes a package of measures to help mitigate the impact of disruption to students’ education - views are being sought on the proposals. (Link)
Find out how the EdTech Austria Startup Challenge could support your Edtech business here.
The EdTech Poland Foundation announce a new cooperation with Stolica eXperymentu. (Link)
Happy to announce the launch of the FuturED Accelerator. It’s driven by a great team from CDP Venture Capital SGR - Fondo Nazionale Innovazione and H-FARM.
The closing date for SuperCharger Ventures’ Cohort 3.0 is 30th July. The 12-week accelerator program is still open for applications from EdTech startups and there’s full details here.
SuperCharger Ventures are releasing an EdTech MOOC series at the end of September / early October. This online course will offer an introduction to EdTech and is suitable for everyone from university students to EdTech founders. Email tyreece@superchargerventures.com for further information.
NEW RESOURCES
New EdTech Crowd podcasts now available from The EdTech Poland Foundation. They feature Anna Iarotska, CEO of Robo Wunderkind (Link) and Svenia Busson, Co-Founder of the European EdTech Alliance (Link).
This newsletter is written and produced by the European Edtech Alliance. The European Edtech Alliance is a consortium of national trade associations and clusters working with founders and providers of education technology (Edtech), to support the domestic and international growth of these businesses and the innovations they represent.