📣 Brighteye Update: A Bright Start to the Year
Hi folks,
We hope your year is off to a great start! 🚀
We are happy to share the Brighteye update with you, which includes two new investments, portfolio updates and market intelligence.
💥 NEW INVESTMENTS
We are excited to announce two new investments:
FundamentalVR 🇬🇧 - Tactile VR training for surgeons. The platform combines VR with haptics (the sense of touch) to create a low-cost and scalable flight-simulator like experience for qualified and trainee surgeons. Read more
Capeesh 🇳🇴 - Language learning for companies powered by AI. They leverage AI and ML to create affordable & customised language courses for any profession in any language.
🆕 SELECTED PORTFOLIO UPDATES
Ornikar is now part of the French Tech 120 - Congratulations to the entire team! 🎉
Litigate raised an additional $3.5 million to continue the development of their intelligent litigation platform (read more). 🙌
Gosu.ai launched the world’s first voice assistance for League Of Legends that helps gamers improve their gameplay! Watch video and if you are gamer, try it for 🆓
Surrogate have brought out their new game SumoBots, the first game where you fight real-life robots over the Internet by representing an esport team such as EXCEL, Team Heretics, Team Empire. 🤖 Play now!
FundamentalVR achieved CME accreditation from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) (read more) 👏
🙋♀️ CURRENT OPEN ROLES @ PORTFOLIO COMPANIES
Our portfolio companies are recruiting! View current opportunities by clicking on links below:
🇪🇺
Aula: Senior Product Designer
Ornikar: Chief of Staff, Business Developer, Lead Dev Frontend, etc.
Ironhack: VP of Marketing & Sales, Product Manager, etc.
Zen Educate: Head of Marketing, Full Stack Software Engineer, Account Manager, etc.
Beekast: Head Of People, Business Developer, Sales Reps in UK & Germany, Customer Success Manager, etc.
FundamentalVR: Product Owner, Marketing Manager, Software Engineer, etc.
🇺🇸
Epic!: Senior Product Designer, Senior ML engineer, Copywriters, etc.
TeachFX: Head of Engagement, Software Engineer, etc.
🇮🇱
Litigate: R&D Team Leader, DL/NLP Researcher, Senior Visual Designer, Operations Manager, etc.
🇪🇺 EUROPEAN EDTECH FUNDING REPORT 2020
The New Year is bright and we are pleased to bring you a new, second edition of Brighteye’s European EdTech Funding report. Overall, the sector has shown remarkable growth over the last 6 years, with 2019 seeing particularly potential strong growth (7X) at the Series B stage as the breakout European EdTech companies look to scale.
🤯 MARKET INTELLIGENCE
What we have been reading/watching/listening to/thinking about lately:
🎙 Podcasts
EdSurge Podcast by EdSurge
Venture Stories by Village Global
EdTech France Podcast (in 🇫🇷) - Listen to the episode in which we were featured! 😊
📚 Books (not necessarily related to EdTech!)
Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis by Jared Diamond
VC: An American History by Tom Nicholas
📑 Reports/Articles
TL:DR - Facts in context
Where are the opportunities for K12 in Europe?
Last week’s BETT show in London, along with recent ICT survey by EC/Deloitte and EC report on digital education at school got us thinking more about the opportunities in European K12.
On the one hand, less than 20% of European students have access to high-speed Internet at school (much higher in the Nordics, Benelux and UK, lower almost everywhere else) meaning distribution of educational software into classrooms is challenging. On the other hand mobile broadband penetration at home is over 100% and 90%+ of European parents believe ICT skills will help their child find a job, which means that students and teachers have digital access at home and there is some willingness to pay from parents.
Because a large majority of European countries have definite plans to invest in schools' digital infrastructure, the long game is to wait for that to happen.
In the meantime, many companies are taking advantage of the digital divide between schools and homes by providing products directly to students/parents. We have seen significant growth by supplementary education players throughout Europe initially with dynamic content (eg SofaTutor, LingoKids, Kartable, Smartick) and increasingly via tutoring platforms (eg MyTutor, SuperProf). Generally, we are big believers in consumer products in education particularly related to competencies (eg English, math, reading or coding skill acquisition) vs. curriculum based learning as they are easier to scale across borders and can lead to much deeper relationships with customers (excellent exploration of how Spotify is deepening customer relationships here).
We also see companies that look to scale in a single European market and then head directly for the US where the market is more competitive but digital penetration in schools is higher (98%+) (eg Kahoot!, Lexplore, ScienceBits, Lalilo, etc.). The challenge in the US is in providing a differentiated product amid often better funded rivals including big tech companies like Microsoft, Google who are building ever more all-encompassing platforms. We believe this path makes sense for companies who can build a real moat around platform and who have figured out a reliable distribution strategy.
A perhaps less obvious path to distribution in Europe is to create technology products directly for administrators & teachers outside the classroom. Because teachers and schools have broadband devices, products that help with teacher recruitment/placement, professional development and/or parent/teacher communications can provide real value now without waiting for the last mile to be built to broadband in the classroom. Indeed a 2020 McKinsey study on how AI will impact teachers suggests that the biggest impact of AI will be in potentially saving teachers time outside class (although Hechinger Report critique argues that this is easier said than done).
**EdTech news QUIZ**
1. Which European country/region received the most EdTech VC funding in 2019?
a) France 🇫🇷 b) UK 🇬🇧 c) Germany 🇩🇪 d) Nordics 🇳🇴🇸🇪 🇩🇰🇫🇮
2. Fill in the blank: Graduway, UK-based alumni engagement company raised $__M in 2019 to expand its footprint in the US and broaden its product lines.
3. There was a big announcement at Davos: The Forum announced an ambitious initiative, a Reskilling Revolution to reskilling ___ billions people by 2030!
4. How much money has been invested in coding bootcamps over the last decade?
a) $0.5Bn b) $1Bn c) $1.5Bn d) $2Bn
Answers: 1) UK according to our latest EdTech Funding Report 2) $60M according to Edsurge 3) 1 billion 4) Just over $1Bn according to HolonIQ
📍 UPCOMING EVENTS
We hope to see you there!
February
Learning Technologies (London)
Super Venture (Berlin)
March
Start Summit (St Gallen)
Unleash (London)
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