🗺 Edtech Market Map

Below you can find an overview of all companies focusing on education* founded between 2000 –2020, narrowed down by the Top 150 in terms of funding in Europe, Asia, and the US and mapped across 14 categories along the different life stages. You can access the full list including further details on the funding amount, business model, and description of the companies here.

*Disclaimers: 1) Excluding companies focusing on financing solutions 2) Many startups listed sit across multiple categories — I chose one for each for simplicity

1. Pre-K

👶🏻 Early Childhood: Companies in the Pre-K cluster offer organized learning for toddlers ranging from traditional to exploratory learning and immersive settings. Neobear utilizes AR technology to develop new knowledge-friendly toys for kids aged from 2–10, while Lingumi teaches English to toddlers via interactive courses.

2. K-12

🏫 School Administration: Companies like Arbor help manage the school’s daily admin, record important student information, and create reports. Others allow schools to connect to other ones at the district, state, and national levels.

📚 Course Material: Most startups in this category, like Bibliu, operate online marketplaces for textbooks and other course materials. Newsela converts news stories into digestible content for younger students and Chegg provides teachers with a “portfolio” of resources to include in their curriculum.

❓P2P Q&A: Similar to Quora, platforms such as Brainly support educational Q&A as a homework platform. structured by traditional content topics such as maths, science, and history (200% MoM activity growth; 200m users since Covid-19).

3. K-12 & Higher Education

👩🏻‍🏫 Classroom Tech: Startups such as ClassDojo let teachers, students, and families communicate with each other and share what’s being learned in the classroom. Echo360 combines video management with lecture capture and active learning to increase student success.

🤓 Next-Gen School: Alternate education providers such as Lambda School train people to be software engineers for free in exchange for a share of future income.

4. Vocational & Higher Education

🎓 Career Planning: Platforms such as Noodle or ApplyBoard (new Edtech Unicorn since May 2020) let you discover schools and universities and connect with education experts. WhiteHat matches non-graduate talent with apprenticeship opportunities and provides training with world-class content providers and 1:1 coaching.

5. Lifelong Learning

💻 Broad Online Learning: Providers such as Coursera, Masterclass or Skillshare host content covering subjects ranging from traditional maths and science topics to cooking and UX design.

🗣 Language Learning: Marketplaces like Dada and Vipkid connect students in China with English tutors, while Duolingo or Babbel offer multiple languages in their app.

6. Across All

🙇🏻‍♀️ Study Tools: Notable companies include BYJU’s and Knowbox which provide study tools that use technology to offer personalized learning programs.

🖥 Learning environment & LMS: Software platforms like Schoology and EVERFI enable schools and corporations to administer and share content, activities, and assessment related to learning.

🤖 Tech Learning: Online platforms such as Codeacademy and Udacity cater specifically to teaching programming and other engineering disciplines. Wonder Workshop and Tech Will Save Us belong to the new wave of STEM products such as robotics and science kits which integrate software and hardware in the maker-movement.

👩🏻‍💼 Tutoring: Marketplaces such as Zhangmen, Preply and Varsity Tutors let you find online or offline face-to-face tutors.

🔬 Simulation: Virtual and mixed reality simulations are now becoming mainstream and being used in education too. Labster for example gives students access to a realistic lab experience without entering an actual lab.

🦄 Edtech Unicorn Landscape

💡 Insights from the current landscape

1. As of May 2020, there are in total 18 Edtech Unicorns — Alone between January 2020 and May 2020, four new companies reached Unicorn status (Udemy, ApplyBoard, Course Hero and Quizlet). Edtech as a sector is currently seeing broader investor interest due to the momentum from COVID-19.
2. Education was so far a tough market to achieve standard VC multiples and hence funding was limited — Investments in education technology globally were just at $18.8bn in 2019. Even though investments in 2018 and 2019 outstrip combined investments in a 20-year period between 1997 and 2017, it is still only a fraction of other sectors. But this seems about to change. In the last 3 months only, MyBuddy.ai, Duolingo, Niche, Quizlet, Edsight, Masterclass, ApplyBoard,Course Hero, Udemy raised in total $307m, ranging from Series A to Series E rounds.
3. Software and content marketed to consumers outside the traditional school system seem to be more attractive business models — only 6 (Udemy, ApplyBoard, Guild, Age of Learning, Hukeidu Group and 17zuoye ) out of 18 Unicorns are also school/corporate-facing. Schools and government are seen as too slow to adapt and sales cycles are too long, sometimes taking up to 24 months. Freemium models that go direct-to-teachers have struggled to monetize.
4. Europe is lagging behind with zero Edtech Unicorns (so far)— there are 8 American, 1 Canadian, 8 Chinese and 1 Indian Unicorns. The European market is clearly more challenging, since each country’s education sector is small and works differently, ranging from public to private systems. With 20m students, teachers who spend 40% of their time on admin and an urgent need for a (tech) workforce to be able to compete against the US and Asian nations, it is clearly a market ripe for disruption.
5. Asia is leading in the Edtech segment — especially China and India while Southeast Asia is catching up. Education is in China the third biggest expense after housing and medical care. Currently, 150m users (mostly between 26–35 years) pay $40b for mobile-based learning programs. Apart from cultural and incentive-based reasons, technology is also more advanced in Asia. Mobile-centric learning platforms leveraging Machine Learning, the phone’s built-in microphones and App-based lessons are still rather untapped in the West.
6. The US has invested very broadly in various categories, while Asia has a clear focus on Tutoring marketplaces and Language Learning — Tutoring and Language Learning is so big in Asia since the population is spread out and there is a big scarcity of good quality teachers and lack of affordable good public education.

🔮 So what’s next post-pandemic?

First predictions were made already in this excellent post by Mercedes Bent and some renowned Edtech VCs on Techcrunch. This is an extended take.

Right now, the pandemic shoved the sector almost overnight into the spotlight and is fuelling current and future demand of Edtech solutions, created by two global trends:

1. Accelerated innovation cycle for educational institutions and
2. Increase in future demand for education offerings that offer viable routes to employment

Let’s have a look at education before Corona (B.C.) and potential scenarios after Corona (A.C.)