Nordic EdTech News #45 : 2021-06-21
Your Week 23 and 24 update from the Nordic & Baltic EdTech ecosystem
For many Nordic EdTech businesses, growing and scaling outside their national and regional markets represents some of their biggest challenges. It’s super encouraging to therefore highlight two high-growth, disruptive businesses that have received significant funding in the last two weeks to accelerate their growth in the US. Firstly eloomi, HQ in Copenhagen, announced a $55 million strategic investment from private equity company Great Hill Partners to scale their SaaS corporate learning and performance management platform. Kognity, HQ in Stockholm, then detailed a raise of $20 million from Alfvén & Didrikson to enter the US high school market (Link).
Whilst on internationalisation, Brighteye Ventures are doing a benchmark study on the topic and would love your insights. 14 questions, 10 minutes - please do contribute here!
Interesting to also note that the global trend of private equity firms buying EdTech companies (see Ellucian and McGraw-Hill Education recently) from other private equity firms is being mirrored in the Nordics. Infinitas Learning, parent company of Liber, announced that it would be sold by Compass Partners to Dutch investment firm, NPM Capital. Trill Impact also confirmed last week that it had signed an agreement to acquire ILT Inläsningstjänst from Priveq (Link).
The recently-published OECD Digital Education Outlook 2021 provides compelling insight into future global education trends. Will it, the report asks, push on towards AI, blockchain and robot technologies or fall back to old, familiar ways? Evidently, this vision is still distant for many countries globally - Teach millions’ commitment to UNESCO's Global Education Coalition puts their platform and Nordic EdTech at the heart of the solution. Find out more here.
The European Edtech Alliance officially launched on 8th June - a recording of the launch event is now available here. Please do sign up for their newsletter (which I’m also proud to be producing!) to keep on top of the wider European EdTech ecosystem.
Next Monday’s Nordic EdTech News Interview will be with Steve Tucker, CEO of itslearning. And if you missed last week’s interview with Jon Gunnar Thordarson, CEO at Mussila, you can read it in full here.
Finally, don’t miss The Anywhere School 2021 from Google for Education - 23rd June.
If you read this newsletter for Nordic EdTech analysis and insight, you may be interested to know that I offer consultancy services. Want to find out more about my advisory work helping to build great EdTech businesses? Let’s talk.
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 always much appreciated!
Best regards, Jonathan
News from Denmark
EdTech Denmark criticizes government plans to relocate education institutions from large cities to the provinces pointing out that the opportunities for digital learning have been “completely overlooked”. (Danish)
Danish Government publishes white paper on the role of “the tech giants” so that “children and young people can have a safe childhood in good balance between the digital world and the physical world.”
Interesting research from Alinea on how teachers find out about digital teaching resources - again highlighting the power of teacher advocacy. (Link)
Great to see that Sahra-Josephine Hjorth, Co-founder and CEO of CanopyLAB, has been elected Vice-Chairman of DI Digital. (Link)
Shape Robotics sign distribution agreement with Christiani in Germany. (Dan)
News from Estonia
N8 Chair, Märt Aro, gave an interview to Estonian radio on the need to develop education and the role of EdTech in supporting this. (Est)
Feedback from teachers and students about their experience of using Clanbeat to support wellbeing. (Link)
Edumus raise €180K from Estonian and Finnish angel investors to accelerate its growth (Link) and announces plans to expand into Ukraine and Uzbekistan. (Link)
ELIIS have launched in Poland with their partner, Europejska Akademia Dziecka. (Link)
Two different sides of Estonian education - tackling digital skills (Link) and inclusivity. (Link)
Research published on “Adopting technology in schools: modelling, measuring and supporting knowledge appropriation” featuring 100 Estonian teachers. (Link)
News from Finland
Claned is named as one of the partners in the Erasmus+ EdTech and AI for essential Skills of the 21st century project. (Link)
Code School Finland produce new teaching materials for a Government programme to develop new literacy and digital skills. (Link)
Interview with Olli Vallo, CEO of Education Alliance Finland, outlining their journey and highlighting the importance of evaluation. (Link)
Eduten sign first agreement in Bangladesh (Link) and secure 45,000 new students in Vietnam. (Link)
Funzi publish a new white paper on the future of work as Founder Aape Pohjavirta launches a new video series ‘Aape’s Rambles: The musings of an #Edtech Founder.’ (Link)
HEI Schools work with SEGi University and Colleges to take their Teacher Certificate programme to Malaysia. (Link)
Kide Science pen deal with international school in Mexico (Link) as CEO, Sari Hurme-Mehtälä, outlines her focus and describes her inspiration. (Link)
New Nordic School and Sri Aurobindo Group launch the Nordic High International School in Indore bringing Finnish education to India. (Link) Notably, Kindiedays and Kide Science are also involved providing the pedagogical management solution and STEAM lesson plans respectively.
Mightifier report positive impact with 4-5 year olds at the Nordic School in Peru. (Link)
News from Iceland
Secure Code Warrior, whose learning platform revamped security education, is now seeking to build a Nordic base and expand its Icelandic team. (Link)
News from Latvia
Teaching resources developed as part of the Tavaklase.lv initiative have been viewed in over 100 countries during the past 12 months. (Latvian)
Latvian teachers are invited to develop digital learning resources as part of Skola2030. (Lat)
Experts from Edurio highlight some of the hidden benefits associated with online, distance learning. (Lat)
News from Lithuania
Congrats to Emotika, who have been chosen as a finalist at the CEE Startup Challenge. (Link)
The recording from the excellent EdTech panel at the recent Startup Fair is now available here.
Detailed review published looking at the effectiveness of Lithuania’s online learning response to the Covid-19 pandemic. (Link)
News from Norway
An international study of 1,500 children by the Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education showed higher learning outcomes and more positive attitudes toward learning with DragonBox. (Spanish)
Girl Tech Fest to go ahead in 2021 with events across Norway. (Nor)
The Kahoot! App is now available in Dutch, Japanese, Polish and Turkish. (Link)
Lær Kidsa Koding receives funding from Forskningsrådet to restart and expand the programme post-Covid. (Nor)
A “Digitalt universitet” team at the University of Oslo is examining what the future of hybrid learning might be. (Nor)
Vigilo win a silver medal at 2021 Learning Impact Awards run by the IMS Global Learning Consortium. (Link)
News from Sweden
Leading industry players and stakeholders outline their vision of how Sweden can become a leader in digital learning. (Swe)
Almi Invest is investing SEK 4.5 million in Freedrum Studio in support of their mission to make it easier to learn to play the drums. (Swe)
Astrid Education has launched a free online English Summer School in Vietnam in collaboration with POPS Kids. (Link)
Clio announces the acquisition of Bonnierförlagen Lära to strengthen its position in Sweden. (Link)
Dugga, Gimi and Quizrr are named as finalists in the Techarenan Challenge 2021. (Swe)
Haldor raises “millions” from Fort Knox to accelerate growth. (Swe)
Catch up with a recording of Sana Labs’ Frontiers of Learning event. (Link)
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