Nordic EdTech News #40 : 2021-04-12
Your Week 12, 13 and 14 update from the Nordic & Baltic EdTech ecosystem
It’s been a busy three weeks since the last Nordic EdTech News, so let’s jump straight into what’s been happening!
HolonIQ’s Q1 round-up of global EdTech VC activity highlights a “very strong quarter” for Europe with Nordic businesses including Labster, Sana Labs and Keystone leading the way. Previous editions of this newsletter have covered the first two extensively, so there’s further detail on Keystone’s (HQ in Oslo) recent major overseas acquisition and debt / equity capital raise here and here.
Whilst on Norwegian EdTech, Kahoot! announced plans to acquire Motimate, a Norwegian employee engagement and learning app provider and posted 195% year-over-year growth in their Q1 results (Link) . Fellow Norwegian corporate learning company, Attensi, also announced a $26m investment in their latest funding round (Link). While Learningbank, a Danish corporate learning EdTech, have closed their €4M round in just 30 days (Link)!
But the Nordics are not just growing great businesses (also see this list of startups shaking up the sector in 2021), we’re also attracting major global brands into our ecosystem. Witness Showbie’s recruitment of a new Nordic team, who will be based in Norway (Link).
Furthermore, companies in our ecosystem are also, according to Forbes, “systemically and sustainably transforming education.” It’s great therefore to see Paula Dozsa, Beatrice Ionascu and Dora Palfi, the Co-founders of imagiLabs; Joel Hellermark, Co-founder of Sana Labs and Endre Olsvik Elvestad, Founder of SignLab recognised in the Forbes 30 under 30 for social impact in Europe.
From an ecosystem development perspective, Teach millions have announced a series of new partnerships, most significantly with UNESCO’s Global Education Coalition. And if your business is looking to explore opportunities in South Korea, then the Nordic EdTech delegation to Education Korea (17-19 May 2021) might be of interest. Full details here.
Finally, if you missed my recent interview with Danielius Stasiulis, CEO at BitDegree and Co-founder of EdTech Lithuania - the link is here. My next interview (out next Monday) will be with Mervi Palander, Founder of leading Finnish EdTech companies, Claned and GraphoGame.
As always, do let me know if you’ve got any feedback or a story to include in a future issue of this newsletter by emailing hello@10digits.org. Sharing this email with your network is also much appreciated!
Best regards, Jonathan
News from Denmark
+80% of Danish teachers feel confident in using digital teaching aids to support their teaching. (Link)
“Renowned professionals and prominent Danes” create online teaching resources to support the nation’s primary schools. (Link)
Interview with CanopyLAB founder, Sahra-Josephine Hjorth, as she discuss their future investment plans. (Danish - $$)
New research from Clio suggests that municipality buying power is slowing down the digitisation of Danish schools. (Link)
EdTech Denmark and IT-Branchen launch new partnership. (Danish)
Labster announce new product updates (Link), release new research with science educators (Link) and discuss their future with support from Silicon Valley. (Link)
Shape Robotics announce sales uptick in Q1 2021. (Link)
News from Estonia
6 Estonian EdTechs plan co-creation programme with schools nationwide. (Link)
The Ministry of Education and Research are providing a one-off grant of € 1.65m (€10 per student) for schools to purchase digital learning equipment. (Link)
ALPA Kids won the Spring 2021 Base Camp organised by Superangel and Garage48. (Link)
Mentornaut has helped over 300 students with distance learning support in the last six months. (Link)
News from Finland
A definitive guide to entering the Finnish education market has been published by Education Alliance Finland. Sign up to receive it here.
Eduten Playground (available in Finland under the name ViLLE) has won The 2020 UNESCO King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize. (Link)
Elias Robot signs distribution deal with RobotLAB Inc. to expand its global distribution. (Link)
Fascinating FiBAN Founders Club webinar this Wednesday with Sebastian Laxell, CEO Whiteboard.fi, who will be talking about their sale to Kahoot! (Link)
Finland Education Shop has been launched by Learning Scoop, bringing together the best of Finnish EdTech. Get the full story here.
GraphoGame launches as a free app in Bolivia, Peru and Venezuela. (Link)
Kide Science announce partnership with House of Wisdom in UAE (Link) and launch new school in India with Sri Aurobindo Group of Institutes and New Nordic School. (Link)
Reactored's pedagogical expert Heini Syyrilä is interviewed by YLE on the benefits of language learning. (Link)
Learn how Vreal are opening the world to young people through virtual tours of cultural destinations. (Link)
News from Iceland
Thorbjörg Helga Vigfúsdóttir, CEO of Kara Connect, features in a GBU Innovation podcast (Link) as the business is named in a list of Icelandic startup teams to watch. (Link)
Mussila has taken over Orðagull's operations. (Ice)
News from Latvia
Latvian teachers create Digitālie skolotāji channel on YouTube. (Lat)
Research proves that the Exonicus digital trauma simulator is as effective as face-to-face training. (Link)
News from Lithuania
Congratulations to Turing College, who have joined Y Combinator’s W21 batch!(Link)
Lithuanian schools are already buying digital learning resources in preparation for the new school year. (Link)
Get involved with the GovTech Lab Lithuania’s Hackathon which has a strong EdTech stream! Full details here.
News from Norway
Good to see programming becoming increasingly common in Norwegian schools. (Nor)
Kahoot! launch new solution with Google Search (Link); make their app available in German and Italian (Link) and develop community sharing and networking. (Link)
Brilliant to see plans to make Ludenso Create available in three Sámi languages by 2022. (Link)
New heavyweight hires to bolster Pickatale’s international growth. (Nor)
The Scrimba Podcast is a great way to highlight the impact of their courses and positive employment outcomes for their graduates.
Snapmentor have drawn up a list of 34 Norwegian EdTechs to watch. (Link)
News from Sweden
Increasingly inequality in Swedish schools as 86% of teachers say that they cannot buy the teaching materials their students need. (Link)
Detailed review of the role of research and evaluation in Swedish EdTech ecosystem. (Link)
Corsmed announce SEK 26.4m fundraise to scale global operations. (Link)
Haldor win learning platform contract for Vingåker municipality. (Link)
Hypocampus announce that their Cortexio study platform will be deployed across Academedia’s upper secondary schools. (Link)
The Swedish Edtech Industry is due to publish its latest landscape report on 26th April - more on that in our next newsletter!
Turnitin announce their intention to acquire Ouriginal. (Link)
UC begins a collaboration with the financial education app Gimi. (Swe)
Zcooly announces rapid growth in subscribers and turnover in the last 12 months. (Link)
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with a friend or five! Please send them here to sign up - https://nordicedtech.substack.com