K-12 Dealmaking: Outschool Raises $110M; Amplify Acquires Math Company
Outschool, the education platform offering small group, online classes, secured $110 million in a Series D funding round led by Tiger Global Management, with participation from BOND, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Union Square Ventures, among others.
The funding will go toward providing resources and scaling the startup, which is now valued at $3 billion.
“We have seen firsthand how the small-group format encourages social interaction and builds friendships,” said Outschool CEO Amir Nathoo in a statement.
“Recently, we launched Outschool Pods based purely on demand from both teachers and families to have more opportunities for on-going organized, academic classes in small group settings.”
Outschool said its courses are live, interactive, and taught by experienced independent teachers and organizations. The company has expanded its market from the U.S. and Canada to include Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.
Curriculum and assessment company acquires Mathigon. Curriculum and assessment company Amplify will acquire London-based K-12 online mathematics company Mathigon.
“Delight may be the hardest outcome to achieve in education. Mathigon achieves it over and over again,” said Amplify CEO Larry Berger in a statement.
The merger will allow Mathigon to reach a wider net of students, said founder and CEO Philipp Legner in a statement. The company’s resources, including many of its games and puzzles, will continue to be freely available and interactive.
The company has offered free tools to students, parents, and teachers since 2016, and claims more than 6 million students and teachers have accessed their service across the globe.
AI ed-tech company acquires test prep program Langoo. Riid, a South Korean artificial intelligence-powered ed-tech company that launched in 2014, created English-language test prep app Riid Tutor, which had already been partners with Langoo.
The investment will help Riid capture broader Japanese market opportunities, said co-founder and CEO YJ Jang. This is the company’s first step to applying its AI technology to the global market, with later plans to enter the Central and East Asian markets.
The acquisition comes after the company secured $175 million from SoftBank’s Vision Fund in a Series D round in May.
According to Riid, their company’s Test of English for International Communication mobile app has over 2.5 million users who have downloaded the app in South Korea and Japan. In addition to the TOEIC app, Ridd launched an ACT prep mobile app in five countries in early 2021.
Bucharest, Romania-based startup closes a funding round. Kinderpedia has secured €1.8 million in a round led by Early Game Ventures, which also saw participation from current investors RocaX, Growceanu, and others.
“Kinderpedia is already benefiting from validation on several international markets,” CEO and co-founder Daniel Rogoz said in a statement published by EU-Startups. The funding will help the startup continue the scaling process of simplifying the administration process in schools and kindergartens and strengthening the teacher-student-parent partnership.
The cloud-based, multilingual program launched in 2015, and currently supports about 200,000 users in more than 2,000 schools and kindergartens. Users are based throughout 14 countries and 3 continents.
Early learning app completes seed funding. Creative Galileo, an India-based startup, has secured $2.5 million in a round led by Kalaari Capital, with participation from angel investors.
The company plans to use the funding for content creation, product development, forging partnerships with leading animation houses, and hiring talent. Ultimately, Creative Galileo wants to scale the business and make learning accessible for millions of children in the early learning segment.
“This will further fuel our efforts in creating more personalized, inclusive, and relatable content helpful in a child’s development in the early years,” said Creative Galileo co-founder Prerna Jhunjhunwala in a statement published by Business Standard.
The app, which emphasizes gamification and personalization, had more than 4 million downloads within the first year of its launch in 2020. Creative Galileo is picking up in international markets, with 10 percent of reported downloads coming from the U.S., UAE, Nepal, Bangladesh, and other countries.
K-12 STEM curriculum solutions company acquires Study Edge. Accelerate Learning, developer of the personalized STEM learning suite STEMscopes, has acquired the digital math curriculum and tutoring platform Study Edge.
The addition will allow Accelerate Learning to expand the capabilities of its technology. The company will also add to its digital core and supplemental offerings, including Study Edge’s highly regarded Math Nation math curriculum.
“Like STEMscopes, Math Nation has a proven track record of improving students’ pass rates on state assessments and positively impacting diverse student populations,” said Accelerate Learning President and CEO of Philip Galati in a statement.
STEMscopes provides support to 6 million students and 600,000 teachers across all 50 states. The company says its curriculum and professional development solutions are meant to support instruction across all learning environments.
India’s largest online learning platform acquires course creating, hosting, and selling site. Graphy, a content monetization platform run by Unacademy Group, acquired Spayee for $25 million.
“We share a common ethos with Spayee,” said Graphy co-founder and CEO Sumit Jain in a statement published by Economic Times. “We are confident that having them as part of the Unacademy group will help us explore common synergies and build the world’s largest creator community.”
According to Spayee, over 2,000 creators and businesses have used their SaaS platform, which allows users to create, market, and sell courses online. The company will continue to operate independently after the acquisition.
Graphy, which allows educational content creators to monetize their skills and grow their audience, will use the buy to optimize its product offerings. The acquisition comes two months after Unacademy raised $440 million in Series H funding. The platform has acquired 10 companies in the past year.
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