⛱️ Our July Update: The Half Year Edtech Funding Report is out
Dear friends 👋🏽,
It’s July. That means time for our Half Year European Edtech Funding Report – published today!
It’s been a busy few weeks here 🔥, with the announcement of our Fund II close in mid-June, followed by hosting and co-hosting four events, including our own AGM, during London Edtech Week.
We also added to your summer reading list 📖 with insights on recent trends in climate training and AR/VR, introduced an Impact Partnership and announced that our Edtech Startup Festival will be back 💥 in September!
More about all of this below, including:
Investment Update – Brighteye closed Fund II at €100M and Komi announces $12M Series A
Selected News from the Portfolio – UpHill, Skiller Whale and Twenix making the news
Insights – How can Edtech help solve the Renewable Energy Skills Gap?
Events – Save the Date for our Edtech Startup Festival
We wish you a great summer!
Best,
The Brighteye Team
💰 INVESTMENT UPDATES
💶 Brighteye - €100M Fund II
We closed our second fund at €100M, double the size of the first fund, taking the total Brighteye assets under management to €150M. The fresh capital solidifies our commitment to investing in promising early-stage Edtech companies across Europe. We are proud to have the European Investment Fund (EIF) 🇪🇺, the leading European institutional partner backing us, alongside Jacobs Foundation and Partners in Equity, as well as Family offices from Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
🗞️ As seen in a number of media publications, including Sifted, Tech.eu, EU-Startups, UKTN and EdWeek Market Brief (US), L’Entrepreneur (Fr).
If you are a Seed and Series A stages founder in Europe looking 👀 for funding in the learning technology space, we can’t wait to talk to you!
🔂 KOMI - $12M Series A (Reinvestment)
Congrats, KOMI, on announcing the $12M Series A round and rolling out your content creator platform to the public! We’re happy to be part of your journey, alongside investors like RTP Global, Third Prime, Antler, e& capital, Contour Ventures and Vicus Capital leading the round. Well done, Lewis Crosbie, Andrew Maddox and team 🚀🚀! Read the full story on TechCrunch!
We are continuing to invest actively and have added a few exciting new companies to the portfolio – 🔮 soon to be announced!
📣 SELECTED NEWS FROM THE PORTFOLIO
📺 UpHill on TV and study featured in journal
Great to see that UpHill made the news (in 🇵🇹 with English subtitles) on Portuguese national TV channel RTP with their automated pathway for patients with diabetes, which is helping GPs and enabling more patients to be followed up by primary care centers.
Coverage also for the company’s new research 🔬 study, published in Study Direct, a peer-reviewed journal, demonstrating the efficacy of UpHill for digital automation of Heart Failure outpatient management.
📰 Skiller Whale's live AI course for devs in the news
Skiller Whale announced the launch of the UK’s first live coaching course on utilising large language models, elevating the technology sector’s understanding of generative AI assistants and accelerating the evolution of next-generation software development. 🏆 The company was also named Startup of the Year in the British Training Awards 2023 – congrats, team!
⛏️ New AI tool from Ribbon Education
Staying with AI, Ribbon Education just launched a free AI-powered student outreach email generator to make streamline operations and improve retention for online adult education providers even more engaging and efficient.
🎧 Hear the Twenix fundraising journey
Great to discover Twenix co-founder and CEO Jorge Moreno recently sharing insights into the Business English language learning platform company’s fundraising journey on the EdTech Academy podcast (in Spanish 🇪🇸).
🔎 INSIGHTS
💥 Half Year European Edtech Funding Report
It’s out today. The headlines:
▪ Overall funding slows but Europe again shows signs of resilience, with ~1/3 of global Edtech deals done in Europe
▪ The worst might have passed, as H1 2023 sees more funding than H2 2022
▪ The largest European deal in H1 was Hack The Box’s $55M Series B (a Brighteye family member!)
▪ UK maintains top spot in Europe with France, Germany, Greece and Spain making up the top 5
▪ A period for Edtech specialist investors in Europe and globally
🤝 New Impact Partnership launched
Considerable uncertainty remains for Edtech companies looking to formalise their approaches to impact. We are very proud to be the first investor to partner with top learning scientists at WiKIT to support our portfolio in improving the way they think about and measure their impact. Read more about the WiKIT model and our partnership – let’s create a model for documenting Edtech evidence!
⚡️Can Edtech solve the Renewable Energy skills gap?
With a ‘skills gap’ crisis in the renewable energy sector threatening our ability to achieve climate goals, we’ve explored how different applications of Edtech are providing much-needed solutions in the space, improving the hiring and upskilling process, reducing costs and boosting efficiency.
🥽 Edtech Opportunities with the Vision Pro
The buzz about the Apple Vision Pro made us keen to reflect on the kind of Edtech opportunities it 🗃️ unlocks… It resulted in a blog covering:
▪ Our tests for mass adoption of the device
▪ How it overcomes key issues with previous headsets
▪ Exciting Edtech companies building for VR, including Floreo, Labster, Red 6, FundamentalVR, Alchemy Immersive, and Nearpod
▪ Broad opportunities for application in Edtech
🎪 EVENTS
🗓️ Our Edtech Startup Festival is back!
Save the date for 3 days of 6 Edtech sessions on 5-7 September, when the Brighteye Edtech Startup Festival returns for the second time 🎉. The idea is to offer Edtech startups hands-on insights into a selection of operational areas: Product, Impact, People, Marketing, Exits and Finance. ✏️ Sign up now to be the first to receive details of the full programme!
🐝 London Edtech Week in June
Looking back, we had a busy London Edtech Week – hosting several events, speaking at some, attending and enjoying the action🎈. Here are a few shots from our “Inside the Deals: Conversations between Founders and the VCs that Backed them” session, followed by the evening Official Opening Reception, co-hosted with our friends at Oppenheimer & Co.