Hello, good afternoon and welcome to February’s European Edtech News!
As evidenced from this jam-packed newsletter, European Edtech has certainly started 2022 as it ended 2021 - on a rocket-speed growth journey! That trajectory is also clearly demonstrated in Brighteye Ventures’ European Edtech Funding Report for 2021. The report found that:
European Edtech VC funding increased by >3X yoy to exceed $2.5B by end 2021
The number of VC deals increased from 273 to 299 with the average deal size in Europe tripling from $2.9M in 2020 to $8.4M in 2021.
Europe now accounts for nearly a third (31%) of all global Edtech deals. Only 21% were done here in 2019.
The European Edtech landscape is broadening. 6 national Edtech markets received more than $100M investment in 2021, as compared to only 1 in 2020.
As Brighteye Ventures comment: “This (report) represents a coming of age for European Edtech, finally receiving VC investment on a scale more competitive with regions further along in their development.”
The full report can be found here and a recording of the online launch event here. And, if you are specifically interested in the figures for the Nordic and Baltic countries, then a detailed breakdown for those 8 countries can be found here.
Of course there’s still work to be done as the report identifies that just 3% of European Edtech VC funding in 2021 went to female-only founders. In fact male founding teams raised 27x more than their female equivalents across 6x as many deals. To address this disparity, the EEA launched its Female Edtech Fellowship with Supercharger Ventures to support our most promising female founders. The first cohort of these 15 amazing fellows started on 24th January (Link) and applications are now open for the second cohort starting in July.
The boom in VC funding in European Edtech is further evidenced in four notable rounds in the last month alone. Most significantly, Domestika, an online learning platform for creatives originally launched in Spain, recently raised $110 million in a Series D funding round, giving the company unicorn status with a valuation of $1.3 billion (Link).
In the Netherlands, StudyTube, a leading learning and development platform, announced that it had closed a $30 million Series B funding round as well as acquiring training marketplace Springest (Link). The business confirmed that the investment will be used to scale up its team and fund a series of strategic acquisitions across Europe. European expansion is also at the heart of a $23 million Series A funding round for Berlin-based digital coaching provider, Sharpist (Link). While London-based FourthRev confirmed $8 million in Series A funding to “bridge the gap between universities and businesses to address the gap in digital skills.” (Link)
On the subject of strategic acquisitions, European Edtech unicorn GoStudent has confirmed the purchase of the U.K.’s Seneca Learning and Spain’s Tus Media Group (Link). As TechCrunch notes this “extends its reach into areas not previously touched by the Austrian unicorn. Seneca provides algorithmic learning content while Tus Media is an open tutoring marketplace.”
It’s great to see the launch of NextEdu, a new European Edtech accelerator programme, run by xEdu. It brings together Finnish and Italian expertise through a collaboration between xEdu, OGR Torino and the CRT Development and Growth Foundation to support startups from across Europe. Apply here and further details here.
If you’re an early-stage European EdTech founder then do check out the EdTech Garage. This new initiative is designed as a gateway into the European EdTech ecosystem where early-stage founders can learn from each other and get support, including community, matchmaking and resources. EdTech Garage has been created by Frank Albert Coates in partnership with Brighteye Ventures and is an associate member of the EEA.
Finally, the EEA is planning something exciting and we can’t wait to tell you more. Register on our website to be one of the first to receive more information.
As always we 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.
Produced by the team at the European Edtech Alliance.
NEWS FROM OUR MEMBER ASSOCIATIONS
FUND-RAISING
French EdTech Doctrio has raised €3M to train medical staff using online short courses tailored to their needs. (Link)
Great Little People from SEK Lab closed a €450K crowdfunding round via La Bolsa Social. (Link)
Norway’s House of Math finalised a NOK 37 million round to accelerate growth as users of its resource and tutoring platform grew from just over 3,000 to half a million. (Link)
Ravensburger announced that their corporate investment arm, Next Ventures, will fund startups working at the intersection of learning and play. (Link)
K-12
As part of the Safer Internet Day campaign, France has launched a free public platform (FamiNum) to help parents reduce the time their children spend on screens at home. The platform is aimed at 6 to 12 year-olds, who have been spending more time online during the Covid-19 pandemic. (Link)
Computer-assisted learning is effective in reducing the socio-economic achievement gap. It helps disadvantaged school students maximize their potential and improves chances of accessing higher education. Based on a study of 250 teachers and 8,000 French students using the Tactileo platform. (Link)
Finland’s School Day reached 6 million student wellbeing responses. (Link)
CORPORATE
Sweden’s Zebrain confirmed a SEK 27 million round for their digital employee coaching platform and outlined expansion plans across Europe. (Link).
OTHER MEMBER UPDATES
Denmark’s biggest Edtech conference - Digital Læringsdag 2022 (Digital Learning Day) - is now confirmed for 2nd June 2022. (Link)
The STAP-budget offers everyone €1,000 to learn and is therefore hugely important to the Dutch startup ecosystem. (Link)
Discover the most promising French Tech Startups with the release of the "next 40" and "French Tech 120". The leading French Edtech, 360Learning, is now part of the next 40. (Link)
The French data protection authority, CNIL, has launched a special acceleration programme to support 5 Edtech companies to address their GDPR issues. (Link)
Helsinki Education Hub will run a series of free webinars on a variety of Edtech topics during Spring 2022. Full details here.
Edutech Spain has agreed with 4YFN that four EdTech startups (Additio, Alumne, CodedArena and Syntagma Digital) will attend this key startup event inside the 2022 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Spain’s SEK Lab has closed its 7th acceleration cohort with 12 new Edtech startups (10 from Spain, 1 from Chile and 1 from Mexico). 80 companies applied from 26 different countries. (Link)
Viducon, a Danish company specializing in video solutions for teaching and training use, has signed an agreement with D2L to support their growth in Denmark and Sweden. (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.