🧣Brighteye November Update
Happy Wednesday, everyone 🧤
We have reached the middle of November 2022, and looking back on what has been a tough year for many, one of the things that struck us was how hard it has been for educators in particular. Without respite, the stress of navigating remote learning during Covid has been supplanted by the need to address deep educational deficits worldwide (the US saw nearly two decades of educational gains wiped out). The current environment coupled with strong labour markets has made it harder than ever to retain and recruit teachers, leading to widely reported shortages across the EU and US.
While technology is not a panacea, we believe that a key driver of growth in edtech has been educator empowerment; indeed there is strong demand for software that amplifies and expands teachers’ abilities.
Brighteye's investments in TeachFX (professional development), Ribbon (large-scale class management), Rosalyn (proctoring), Sdui (communications/admin) and Genially (presentation) were informed by the ability of these platforms to give teachers richer options. Similarly, we backed Zen Educate (substitute teacher placement) and Cademy (software suite for independent educators) in part because we saw their ability to improve financial outcomes for educators. As the need becomes more acute, we intend to continue investing in companies that empower educators and would love to hear from you 📞 if you’re building in that space.
Now on to the usual update, which includes:
Investment Updates – re-investment in Zen Educate
Selected Portfolio News - deserved awards for LabLabee and YouSchool
Insights – the Edtech Content Landscape
Events – rendezvous in Helsinki this week, or Paris next?
Talent wanted – our portfolio companies are hiring
Curated Content – some recommended picks to read and listen to
Enjoy!
Best,
The Brighteye Team
💰 INVESTMENT UPDATE
🆕 Zen Educate - $21M
We are super proud of our portfolio company Zen Educate, who announced a new $21m round of funding earlier this month! The added funding will help the online marketplace for matching schools with the best available teachers 🖇 cement their market-leading position in the UK 🇬🇧, explore new verticals 🔍 and grow their burgeoning business in the US 🇺🇸. Congrats Slava, Oren and team Zen on all the amazing growth and success.
Read the full story on why we invested and re-invested here!
Slava Kremerman and Oren Cohen at Zen Educate (image credit: Zen Educate)
🙋🏽 Who else is raising?
We are always keen to learn about promising edtechs to invest in out there. Please let us know of any companies we should speak with, by emailing Hannes at ha@brighteyevc.com or share your deck now!
📣 SELECTED NEWS FROM THE PORTFOLIO
🏆 Fantastic to learn that LabLabee is the Winner of the World Communication Award 2022 – Startup of the Year. This recognition is a boost of confidence for the team, with a judging process well-known for its transparency and integrity, meaning that if LabLabee is on the list, they know they’ve earned it.
🥇 In other prestigious prizes Cécile Hazan of YouSchool has been awarded the Grand Prix du Talent Feminine, Startup Dirigeante category, by France Invest. Congratulations and well deserved, Cécile 🚀!
📻 sAInaptic have been busy getting in the news lately! We loved hearing Kavitha Ravindran on BBC Radio Northampton (the final 30 minutes) and enjoyed the interview with Raj Iyer on Claimer Startup Spotlight 🔥
🔎 INSIGHTS
👑 Is Content King? In our recent “Understanding the Edtech Content Landscape” report and market segment analysis we are looking at the evolution of Edtech content. What are we seeing now and where are we heading?
A huge thanks 🙏🏻 to Claire Chen, who interned with us this summer and is a current Stanford University Graduate School of Business MBA student, for her work on the report.
🎪 EVENTS
🇫🇮 This week we’ve managed to get our hands on passes for Slush and XcitED in Helsinki ❄️. Ben, David and Hege from team Brighteye will be around, please get in touch if you want to say hi IRL on Thursday 17 or Friday 18 November!
🇫🇷 Next week, our Principal David is speaking at the HolonIQ Global Impact Summit in Paris on Tuesday 22 November. As are the CEOs of two of our portfolio companies – Marie Taquet Bovet of iconoClass and Sylvie Milverton of Lynx Educate.
💪🏻 TALENT WANTED
Our portfolio companies are hiring - here are some of the opportunities that you may want to check out:
Genially is looking for a Customer Development manager for the Italian K12 market
La Solive are hiring an Admin and Finance lead and a Talent Acquisition Manager (descriptions in French)
💁 CURATED CONTENT
✉️ Newsletters
Tony Wan, currently Head of Platform at Reach Capital, with 10+ years at the helm at EdSurge covering all things edtech, is a trusted source of information and insights in this space, so we are happy to see he’s launched a newsletter named edtech after dark, his “look at exciting and subversive ideas at the intersection of education, technology, work and humanity.”
Our friends at GSV recently launched their daily N2K (News2Knowledge) newsletter, with headlines covering the global “Pre-K to Grey Learning and Skilling Landscape” landing in inboxes daily. Go subscribe!
🗞 Article
Our Associate Hannes Aichmayr recently shared some thoughts on Edtech and the Metaverse in the German Bildung.Table (in German 🇩🇪). He is not too convinced, yet, and wants to be challenged on it...
🎙 Podcasts
After doing a great job with the Edtech Content landscape report when joining us as an intern this summer, Claire Chen went on to speak with Alex Sarlin of Edtech Insiders about it, and a lot more. Enjoy a good listen!
Our friend and partner over at Dealroom, Edtech Specialist, Carla Napoleão, sat down with Benjamin Thomas as a guest speaker for User.com's Innovating EdTech podcast. Hear Carla now on 🎧 The EdTech landscape!
Edtech Journeys by Joni, an Edtech Pioneer, Entrepreneur and Economist since 2008, is focused on connecting the Nordics with Latam and beyond. It is a Spanish-English platform for interviews and reflections with top edtech founders, education influencers and beyond. Listen and read!