📣🌱 Brighteye Q1 2021 Update
Dear EdTech friends,
We hope you are all safe and well and that 2021 has started in the best possible way!
At Brighteye we have had an active end to 2020 and a busy beginning of the new year 🐝, and we are happy to share a lot of exciting news in this Q1 update.
Some highlights include:
The closing of a new fund
Four new investments
Two new reports
Three new team members
Recaps of two events that we have hosted
A list of curated content (i.e. podcasts, articles, newsletters)
Before we dive in, we would like to invite you to follow us on 👋 LinkedIn and 🐦 Twitter if you want to receive updates more frequently from us.
💰FUND II & NEW INVESTMENTS
Since our last update we are thrilled to have closed the first round of Brighteye Fund II. The fresh $54m brings our total AUM to $112 and is already being deployed in exciting new projects.
🆕 New Fund Investments (Q4 2020)
Which leads us nicely to the announcement of, and a warm welcome to. no less than 4 new members to the growing Brighteye family:
AgroLeague (France) - the SaaS platform that helps farmers improve efficiency & sustainability through coaching
Rosalyn.ai (US) - Superhuman Proctoring AI Virtual Assessment Platform
Simbel (France) - a marketplace that connects employees and highly curated training providers, and unlocks government training schemes
The PowerMBA (Spain) - the MBA alternative that democratises access to business education
📣 SELECTED PORTFOLIO UPDATES
Ironhack raised its Series B! Brighteye is also proud and happy to be part of the $20m Series B2 round raised by existing portfolio company Ironhack in December 2020 - well done team! 🌟🚀
Ornikar Chief Marketing Officer, Antonin Delfino reflected on the impact of TV on Ornikar's growth in an interview with French TF1 PUB, demonstrating that TV advertising is not just for big advertisers 📺. (In French)
Global law firm TaylorWessing has implemented the groundbreaking LitiGate solution, and described on ICLG exactly how is helping their team to analyse their cases smarter and faster ⏩⏩.
📊 NEW REPORTS - (1) FUNDING & (2) MARKETING
We kicked off the new year in style, with the launch of the annual Brighteye European EdTech Funding Report 2021 💶.
We are excited to see that the European EdTech ecosystem is proving to be resilient and the growth in EdTech funding has hit a record level of $711M in 2020 (13x growth since 2013!) 🚀💥. The report has been shared in all channels and is available in full here:
And, as if one fresh report is not enough, we also just released the State of EdTech Marketing. In exploring the insights of 55 EdTech CMOs and founders (huge love and thanks 🙏🏻 to all who contributed), we provide a benchmark of several key marketing metrics and snapshot of the adjustments that EdTech companies have made to their marketing approaches in 2020.
💪🏻 GROWING THE TEAM
As our portfolio is growing, so are we. Brighteye are proud and delighted to have welcomed three new additions to the team over the past few months.
🎉 Sarah Bertram Smith has joined as Associate, Hege Tollerud as Head of Community, and Rhys Spence, Head of Research.
The appointments further enhance our ability to offer bespoke support and value-added services to our growing portfolio of EdTech founders and teams, as well as to expand the reach and capabilities of the investment team as we tackle yet more of the European EdTech landscape.
🌍 THE EUROPEAN EDTECH TOUR 2021
While the world is still in lockdown, we have embarked on a European Tour of virtual events this spring, exploring different regions and different exciting EdTech companies and experts that share successes, experiences and knowledge in a range of fields related to growing a business. 🚀🚀
So far we have “visited”📍 the Nordics in January, speaking to Johan Brand, Co-Founder of Kahoot!, and 📍 Spain & Portugal in February, for conversations with Gonzalo Manrique of Ironhack and Cristobal Viedma of Lingokids, as well as regional investor friends António Miguel from Mustard Seed Maze, José Maria Hernanz from JME Ventures and Juan Lopez of Kibo Ventures.
💁 CURATED CONTENT
We are regularly sharing news and updates on our Brighteye 👋 LinkedIn and 🐦 Twitter channels - as well as making appearances on Clubhouse - and hope you want to follow us there. Meanwhile, we have also made some curated reading & listening suggestions.
🎙 Podcast
The Edtech Podcast is well worth new shout-out, not least as Brighteye Partner Benoit Wirz was recently speaking to Sophie Bailey on Future Tech and Trends in the What Matters in EdTech series.
Pietro Invernizzi (Stride) - The Seedtable Podcast
📑 Reports/Articles
Ben Wirz (Partner at Brighteye) was featured in a TechCrunch article: 13 investors say lifelong learning is taking EdTech mainstream
David Guerin (Principal at Brighteye) was interviewed by Mehdi Cornillet on the state of the exits in the European EdTech space (written interview in French 🇫🇷)
Why some EdTech investors could finally be set for a post-pandemic payday - Pitchbook
🗃️ Newsletters
La Revue EdTech by Mehdi Cornillet (written in French 🇫🇷)
Seedtable by Gonzalo Sanchez (On Deck)
Obviously The Future by Katelyn Donnelly (Avalanche VC)