LearnTech

LearnZillion - Great Video Lessons From Great Teachers

Two weeks ago LearnZillion publicly announced it had raised $2.4 million in Series A funding, with LearnCapital joining the group of investors.  First conceived at E.L. Haynes Public Charter School in Washington, D.C., LearnZillion features 3-5 minute instructional videos created by its dream team of educators.  The LearnZillion platform gives teachers the power to create lesson playlists, track assignment completion, and differentiate for students of all abilities.

We are thrilled to back LearnZillion as it grows its business and expands its portfolio of topics.  Currently, the company is hiring 100-200 educators to join its dream team for a summer sprint of lesson creation.  If you know a teacher interested in contributing to the future of EdTech, more information can be found here.

ClassDojo and BloomBoard featured in The Wall Street Journal

Last week, The Wall Street Journal profiled LearnCapital portfolio companies ClassDojo and BloomBoard to highlight the explosion of startups bringing innovation to education. The article, which can be read in its entirety here, examined the diversity of product, business, and funding models that are driving change in this notoriously slow moving industry.  To this end, the Journal highlights ClassDojo’s decision to bypass the bureaucratic and lengthy school district sales cycle and sell its classroom behavior management software directly to individual teachers. This direct sales strategy is becoming increasingly popular in EdTech and has yielded positive results for many, including ClassDojo, which has seen strong user growth of late.

Alternatively, the Journal also profiled BloomBoard, whose product—an innovative teacher evaluation software package—requires the company to market the product at the school and district level. The article quoted BloomBoard CEO Jason Lange, who summed up the headwinds and tailwinds facing EdTech entrepreneurs, saying, “education is ‘a brutal industry averse to change in every way, shape and form.’ Still, he says the falling prices of some technology and the growing amount of data schools have to handle make this an ‘unprecedented time’ for change.”

At LearnCapital, we also believe that ClassDojo and BloomBoard represent the best in EdTech innovation, and are happy to see them receive well-deserved recognition from the mainstream business press.  We’re excited to work with both of their teams as they continue to capitalize on what look to be promising futures.

EdTech VC By The Numbers

It’s no secret that investments in edtech are on the rise, and events such as SXSWedu are bringing education startups to the mainstream technology community.    Today, EdTech Digest shared an infographic that quantifies the rapid rise in deals and dollars invested.  The dramatic acceleration started in 2007, and investments could total $500M as soon as this year.

As the edtech community continues to grow, we’re proud to be at the forefront of investors working to find companies that will transform learning for students around the world.  Our portfolio companies serve all age groups and topics, yet we have only scratched the surface of edtech’s potential for impact.  We look forward to working with startups and fellow investors as we continue to shape this growing field.

EdTech Capital of Tomorrow: New Orleans?

To all those in the EdTech community who descended on Austin for SXSW last week, I humbly offer a piece of advice: you may want to set your sights slightly further east next year. Last week was New Orleans Entrepreneur Week (NOEW), an annual gathering of top tech talent, VC and corporate leaders, top MBA teams, civic leaders, and the city’s most promising entrepreneurs, for a celebration of New Orleans’ startup ecosystem that would have been unthinkable just 7 years ago. One of the week’s highlights was Jennifer Medbery, Founder & CEO of classroom CRM platform Kickboard, state her goal to establish New Orleans at the epicenter of the EdTech industry after winning the $50,000 Big Idea pitch competition. As I listened to her declare her vision—that this city, which had historically ranked dead last in so many education, entrepreneurship, and technology measures—would become the leader of the EdTech revolution—I found myself wondering, could that really happen? Let me briefly make the case that it can and will. 

New Orleans today is ground zero for education innovation at the practitioner level.  The city has the densest concentration of charter schools in the country, with 70% of students attending one of the city’s 60+ charter school.  While charter schools can evoke controversy, there is little question that they provide an environment that fosters experimentation in education.  The conventional wisdom holds that New York has a natural EdTech advantage because it is home to textbook publishers and other incumbent players. However, I would argue that the real edge belongs to the city that is empowering entrepreneurship at the school and classroom level. VC luminaries like Fred Wilson are fond of shying away from companies that offer services to existing industry players and instead investing in companies that seek to uproot the existing power structure.  Those kind of companies are likely to get their start in a city that is dense with practitioners testing out new ground level solutions.  It doesn’t hurt that New Orleans is also home to one of the largest concentrations of Teach For America corps members (360 active teachers and 620 alumni) in the country, adding to the youthful, innovative education climate.  Perhaps nobody exemplifies the potency of this combination better than Ms. Medbery herself, who founded Kickboard when she was a Teach For America corps member in a New Orleans charter school.

Additionally, while New Orleans has emerged as a true startup hub it lacks a uniting sector focus.  This is a product of the city’s recent history.  Once the home of America’s oil industry, that central piece of the city’s economic identity began to flee to Houston in the 1970s.  By the time Katrina struck, New Orleans was home to only one Fortune 500 company, relying on only hospitality and shipping to support its economy.  After the storm, every New Orleanian who returned became an entrepreneur out of necessity, fighting against the odds to reestablish their lives and businesses.  The startup boom that the city is currently experiencing is an outgrowth of that scrappy spirit.  Moreover, this city, which had suffered for decades from a severe brain drain, is now a magnet for talent, attracting droves of young, well-educated, purposeful doers.  Further, as the startup community has grown since the storm, a dynamic local ecosystem has sprouted up to support it.  Organizations like The Idea Village, Launchpad, and the $47 million New Orleans Bioinnovation Center provide mentorship, space, and resources to aspiring local entrepreneurs, local law firms offer pro bono services to early stage companies, early stage capital has begun to flow in, Mayor Landrieu is a champion for local startups, and the local university system has reoriented itself to promote entrepreneurial studies.  As the ecosystem continues to grow and develop its identity, it is only natural that it will begin to organize around certain industrial sectors.  Biotechnology may be one, but education is another natural fit.  This trend is already beginning to emerge, with several local EdTech startups on display during NOEW and a dedicated Education Entrepreneur Challenge event during the Week with a $10,000 prize pool.

Lastly, New Orleans has the winds of timing at its back.  The city’s improbable emergence as a rising startup powerhouse and education pioneer coincides with EdTech innovation’s widespread disruption of the education industry.  Both the city of New Orleans and the EdTech revolution will continue to define their identities over the next few years.  Don’t be surprised if these two movements become evermore associated with one another.

So, if you’re interested in EdTech, take notice, big things are brewing in the Big Easy.

ShowMe 2.0

Last week TechCrunch reported on the updated product from LearnCapital portfolio company ShowMe.  The new version boasts searching capabilities, enhanced profiles, and lesson editing tools.

ShowMe’s goal is to democratize learning through a platform that allows any teacher to record and annotate lessons on an iPad.  The ShowMe community has created over 1.5 million lessons that anyone can access through the company’s app or website.  While we certainly appreciate the efforts of Khan Academy and TED-Ed, we’re proud to support a company that puts the power to create into the hands of all teachers.

Edmodo Opens Platform to Developers

LearnCapital portfolio company Edmodo made a big splash yesterday by announcing that it is opening its API to third-party developers.  Developers will be able to deliver educational applications to Edmodo’s 6 million users, while teachers and students will have a centralized hub for everything related to their classroom.  The platform launched with 35 featured partners, included LearnCapital companies StudySync, Desmos, MasteryConnect, and SchoolTube.

A few weeks ago we documented Edmodo’s widespread adoption across the country.  We’re incredibly excited to partner with the team as it enters this new stage of growth, and can’t wait to see the platform develop into a hub for educational content, learning activities, and communication.

Interactive Learning Cracks Top Business School Rankings? MBAs Test Drive Udemy’s Faculty Project

A couple of weeks ago, we covered our portfolio company Udemy’s launch of The Faculty Project, which brings full courses from leading academics to anyone with an internet connection, for free.  This past week, U.S. News & World Report published a feature on Udemy in its annual Top Business Schools edition, highlighting the democratization of higher education knowledge. In particular, U.S. News holds the Faculty Project up as a resource for both prospective and current MBA students seeking to increase their exposure to graduate level business lessons. The article quotes Gad Allon, an associate professor at Kellogg who is teaching Operations Management on Udemy, “I would definitely recommend current [M.B.A.] students to use such a course to reinforce what they learn in class,” he says. “As for students applying to business schools, this can be used to get a glimpse as to what they will learn.” 

What you may not know is that most of us LearnCapital Fellows who maintain this blog are MBA students ourselves.  With that in mind I decided to put U.S. News’ article to the test and check out some Faculty Project course sessions.  I watched the first two classes of the “Foundations of Business Strategy” course by Professor Michael Lenox, Slover Professor of Business at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business (check out the first class here). I was impressed.  The course was well-paced, clearly organized, benefited from strong production values, relevant for students with a diverse range of prior business experience, and Professor Lenox’s years of experience as a lecturer shone through.  The sessions not only reinforced concepts I learned in a similar classroom-based course last semester but also introduced some new ideas that I hadn’t been exposed to at school.  I definitely recommend the course to prospective and current MBA students and anyone interested in quoting business strategy concepts at their next cocktail party.  I’ll be back to finish the course as soon as new episodes are posted. And if you’re learning interests don’t all include acronyms like NPV, IRR, and YTM, fear not, Faculty Project courses cover a wide range of undergraduate- and graduate-level disciplines.

Meet Chromatik @ SXSW

Come meet LearnCapital portfolio company Chromatik at SXSW!  The company will be taking part in a showcase featuring demos from LA’s Silicon Beach tech community.  The event is Sunday, March 11 from 12pm-4pm.  Location and details can be found on the event information page.

Chromatik is redefining how people practice, learn, and perform music, by bringing lessons, sheet music, and recording capabilities to mobile and web applications.  The company has partnered with an impressive list of featured teachers, and is currently preparing for a public launch in a few months.  Sign up to be notified when the product is available, or come meet the team in Austin!  

Edmodo Coast to Coast

LearnCapital portfolio company Edmodo has experienced tremendous growth throughout the 2011-2012 school year, and it hasn’t gone unnoticed.  From California to Maryland, Edmodo is helping teachers and students organize, collaborate, and share.  The company has over 5.7 million registered teachers and student worldwide, and its reach is growing larger every day.

Edmodo promotes anytime, anyplace learning, by giving teachers a space to post messages, discuss topics, assign and grade classwork, and share content.  Best of all, it’s free!  We’re proud of the impact the Edmodo team is having on education, and are excited to see it continue to scale.  To check it out for yourself, visit the website to sign up and take a product tour.

StudySync Spreads Blended Learning Toolkit

StudySync—provider of a dynamic online supplemental learning environment—recently announced that it has nearly doubled its teacher and administrator accounts and now reaches tens of thousands of students.  This growth is all the more impressive considering the LearnCapital portfolio company just celebrated its one-year anniversary.  StudySync offers a robust portfolio of multimedia content and tools that help educators engage middle and high school students in classroom material, inspire them to think critically, generate peer discussions, and relate classroom concepts to real-world events in real time and on the go.

StudySync is innovating at the intersection of two of the most important trends in education: the shift towards blended learning and the rise of the Common Core State Standards. StudySync enables teachers to broaden and deepen their impact on students through thoughtful applications of technology, like compelling video trailers for classic literature titles and mobile blasts that engage students in dialogue around current events as they happen.  The Common Core is enabling StudySync to design high quality lesson libraries around material that will be applicable from coast to coast.  StudySync is an example of a smart team bringing a thoughtful product to market at just the right time.