Hello, good morning and welcome to the first European Edtech News of 2022. Thanks for your support of this newsletter in 2021 and here’s to a healthy and successful 2022!
HolonIQ’s full year report on Global EdTech Venture Capital Funding in 2021 confirmed a brilliant year for European Edtech with investment rising from $0.8 bn in 2020 to $3.08 bn in 2021. We’ll continue to highlight this amazing growth story during 2022 as the industry works to sustain its recent rapid acceleration. And the early signs from the first few weeks of the new year are certainly really encouraging.
This newsletter began in June 2021 with GoStudent’s €205 million Series C round as our lead story. It’s amazing to report today that the Austrian Edtech unicorn announced another €300 million raise last week to continue its mission to become a leading global education platform (Link). This new round values the business at €3 bn and will be used to fuel further global expansion and to make acquisitions.
If you’d like to hear more from their CEO Felix Ohswald, then don’t miss next week’s launch of the Brighteye Ventures European Edtech Funding Report 2021. This definitive annual publication will be launched online (with Felix and a great panel) on Thursday 27th January between 14:00 and 15:00 GMT. Sign up here now!
As well as the numerous funding rounds detailed below, significant recent raises from EduMe (a $20 million Series B round) and Lepaya (a $40 million Series B round) confirm European Edtech’s increasing prowess in corporate learning and employee upskilling.
This is further reinforced in GSV’s EdTech 150 - their list of the most transformational private companies in digital learning. Of the 20 European Edtechs listed (including GoStudent and Lepaya), most (9) are focused on workplace learning with a further 8 in the adult consumer learning category.
In addition to significant fundraising, 2022 has also continued last year’s surge of acquisition and consolidation across European Edtech. This is echoed by Reach Capital’s Jennifer Carolan who commented on Twitter that “2021 was a year of consolidation for education.”
Notably this has seen Northern Ireland’s Texthelp acquire North America’s Don Johnston Inc. to create a global powerhouse in assistive technologies (Link). The new business has ambitious goals and aims “to help one billion people across the world by 2030.” French workplace learning champion 360Learning also recently announced that it had bought Loop, a British LMS competitor, for $20m (Link). The company sees the purchase as their “first step towards achieving the firm’s next growth ambitions.”
In other workplace learning acquisition news, Sweden’s TicTac confirmed that it has purchased Key2Know to accelerate its growth in the Danish market (Link). The agreement is part of TicTac’s “buy and build strategy…(to become) the leading Edtech company for corporates across Northern Europe.”
If you’re still looking for more European Edtech inspiration, then check out two recently-published lists of companies to watch out for in EU-Startups and Sifted.
To further boost European Edtech founders, the EEA is delighted to announce the launch of its Female Edtech Fellowship. This 6-month fellowship has been specifically designed with Supercharger Ventures to support our most promising female founders. Applications close at 23h59 CET TODAY (Weds 19th Jan) and the first cohort of 15 fellows starts on 24th January. So get those applications in NOW!
This initiative is led by Svenia Busson, the European Edtech Alliance’s First Chair. We’re delighted to announce that an updated version of her book 'Exploring the Future of Education' is now out and is available to buy here. It is a compilation of 24 stories from 8 European countries and is a great way to learn more about the top trends and best practice in Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Poland and Spain. Even better, there’s 15% for subscribers of this newsletter - just use the code EEA_NEWS.
As always the European Edtech Alliance would love to hear your feedback on this newsletter, so do comment below. Please also share it with your networks and across social media. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter here.
The next issue of European Edtech News will be in subscribers’ inboxes on 16th February 2022.
Produced by the team at the European Edtech Alliance.
NEWS FROM OUR MEMBER ASSOCIATIONS
FUND-RAISING
London-based Kodland, a “a global online coding school for kids aged 8-17” confirms a $9 million Series A round to scale internationally. (Link)
Also in the UK, Create Academy announces their £1.6M Series A round, which was led by Bowbridge and Brighteye Ventures. (Link)
Icelandic maths startup Evolytes secures a $520,000 financing round, with NSA Ventures leading the way. (Link)
Swedish school platform Meitner closes an additional funding round of SEK 10 million (€970k). (Link)
Skiller Whale raises $2.9M to grow their on-job tech training platform. The round was led by Brighteye Ventures and a group of VCs and angel investors including Playfair and RLC.
Vignita, a Norwegian social education platform for skilled workers, concludes a NOK 6.7M ($750k) capital funding round. (Link)
K-12
Norway’s Conexus agrees to acquire Skooler (Link). The deal will “make it easier for teachers to access information through integration with Microsoft Office and Teams…. both domestically and abroad.”
UK-based Mytutor confirms their acquisition of Fire Tech, a coding and technical training platform for children. (Link)
Polish schools receive innovative STEM equipment thanks to the Laboratories of the Future programme. (Link)
LIFELONG LEARNING
EdTech France is launching a national awards event for lifelong learning startups. The goal is to celebrate Edtech companies working with training organizations across all sectors in France. (Link)
French EdTech startup, Marmelade, raises €2.6m via Brighteye Ventures, Aster and another undisclosed fund. They deliver super-smooth and user-friendly mobile training courses. (Link)
DutchEdtech member, Winc Academy, raises $3 million to train 20,000 IT professionals in Europe. (Link)
CORPORATE
Twenix, a Spanish Edtech startup, closes an €2M equity financing round with Banco Sabadell, Brighteye Ventures, Inveready and JME Ventures (Link). Their learning platform for SMBs offers individual 1:1 business English classes, tailored to companies' and learners' needs.
OTHER MEMBER UPDATES
Interesting article (in Dutch) highlighting the growth of the Edtech sector in the Netherlands.
The Italian Edtech accelerator FuturED has confirmed the 8 startups joining its first cohort. (Link)
Don’t forget to subscribe to some of the other great newsletters from across the European Edtech ecosystem! There’s more on Dutch Edtech here and on Nordic Edtech here.
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.