Nordic EdTech News #80: 2023-01-09
Your Weeks 50 - 1 update from the Nordic and Baltic EdTech ecosystem
Nordic EdTech News is the best way to keep up with the EdTech ecosystem across 8 Nordic and Baltic countries. I curate it from company updates and a wide variety of international sources. It’s a passion project of mine - the rest of my time is spent advising / consulting companies who lead the future of learning. If you’d like to find out more, drop me an email.
Good morning, happy new year and welcome to the first Nordic EdTech News of 2023. This newsletter rounds up everything that has happened across the Nordic and Baltic EdTech ecosystem since 12th December 2022. There’s lots to update you on, so pour yourself another coffee and let’s get straight into it!
2022 ended with a bang for Albert, a leading Gothenburg-based EdTech. On 19th December, they announced three significant acquisitions to supercharge their growth. Two Swedish EdTech businesses, Film och Skola and Strawbees, joined the Albert group along with Holy Owly, a language learning EdTech from France. The total initial purchase price is SEK 160 million, of which SEK 75 million is in cash and the balance will be in newly issued shares.
I caught up with Arta Mandegari and Salman Eskandari, Co-founders at Albert, last week for this exclusive interview to discuss the deals and their rocketship business in further detail.
In significant Nordic EdTech funding news, Sana confirmed the close of their latest mega funding round - a $34m Series B led by Menlo Ventures. Their existing investor, EQT Ventures, also joined the round along with “a number of founders and operators.” Menlo Ventures’ rationale for the investment is also well worth reading.
Staying in Sweden, Skolverket (the National Agency for Education) published their much-anticipated digitisation strategy for the school system from 2023 to 2027. Too much to summarise everything here, but this quote from Peter Fredriksson, Skolverket’s Director General gives a good overview: ”The important thing is that preschools and schools use digital tools and learning materials in a way that strengthens the quality of teaching, so that children and students have better conditions to reach the knowledge goals.”
Bodies including TIMDA and Tech Sverige have reiterated the importance of continued school digitisation and are urging the government to go further, faster.
Meanwhile in Norway, the publication of the GrunnDig report gives a detailed indication of the state of digitization in schools nationwide (Link). I’ll use a quote from the press release to summarise: “Positive teachers, varied and up-to-date teaching and improved learning outcomes, but little coordination and fragmented research.”
It’s therefore no surprise to see that Nordic EdTech companies are trusted partners in delivering national education improvement initiatives. Finland’s Eduten has, for example, recently signed an MoU with the Ministry of Education and Science in Mongolia to improve the state of mathematics education (Link). Coincidentally, Sweden’s Astrid have also signed a deal with the Mongolian Government (Link). The Project Boost initiative will “assess and upskill the spoken English communication skills of youth in Mongolia while uniquely strengthening the education sector in the country with state of the art technology.”
Astrid (and Finland’s Kide Science) have also been named in the Elite 200. This is the list of semifinalists competing for the 2023 GSV Cup. Good luck to both companies!
Here’s to a healthy and successful 2023 for everyone who reads and subscribes to Nordic EdTech News. I’m looking to expand on a successful 2022 when I published 23 newsletters and covered thousands of news stories from across our ecosystem. On average, each newsletter was opened by 45% of subscribers and generated over 2,050 views (+28% yoy). Thanks again for your support!
If you’ve got a story that you’d like me to include in a future issue of this newsletter, please email hello@10digits.org, tag me on Twitter or LinkedIn or use #nordicedtech / #balticedtech. Sharing this email with your network is also always much appreciated!
Best regards, Jonathan
News from Denmark
The Danish Data Protection Authority has granted municipalities a delay as they review the use of Google Workspace in schools. (Link)
“We were forced to forget about our home market and focus outside Denmark.” Great interview with Anders Laustsen, CEO and Co-founder of Famly. (Link)
Jesper Rømer gives DI Digital the lowdown on life at Meebook. (Link)
Board changes at Shape Robotics as they prepare to list on Copenhagen’s main Nasdaq market in 2023. (Link)
Systematic won a tender to supply their library management solution to 22 libraries in Norway. (Link)
uQualio has been named in the list of top “NextGen Learning Systems 2023.” (Link)
News from Estonia
New series of films highlighting the strengths of Estonian education. (Link)
Clanbeat have launched Sage to provide micro-coaching support for businesses and professionals. (Link)
How Vali IT! creates IT experts from non-tech professionals. (Link)
News from Finland
Interesting case study showing Annie help to reduce student suspensions at Varia Vocational College. (Link)
Claned received numerous awards from G2. Congratulations! (Link)
Code School Finland and Google bring coding to 15,000 students across Europe. (Link)
Big milestone for Freeed as over 15,000 teaching ideas have now been shared on the platform. (Link)
Kide Science confirms a deal with all pre-school institutions in Lempäälä municipality (Link) and receives the Common Sense Selections for Learning recommendation. (Link)
Music Fairy Tales receive €400,000 from Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture to further develop their Feel & Play musical emotional education content and application platform. (Link)
News from Iceland
Atlas Primer on the future of AI and large language models in education. (Link)
Evolytes have been approved by the City of Stockholm and release new product updates. (Link)
News from Latvia
Further roll-out of devices across Latvia as part of the “A computer for every child” programme. (Link)
7,000 teachers and students test the national digital exam infrastructure. (Link)
Exonicus is now working with partners from Estonia and Germany to develop a virtual trauma simulator for the military sector. (Link)
YouTube launched Leturi Pauzi, a new educational media literacy program in Latvia that provides tips on identifying different misinformation tactics. (Link)
News from Lithuania
Creo and Examify join the FIRSTPICK pre-accelerator programme. (Link)
Turing College has been named by Fortune as one of 2023’s best data science and analytics bootcamps. (Link)
Vilnius Coding School has signed a cooperation agreement with Checkmarx, an Israeli application security company. (Link)
News from Norway
Lars Willner, CEO of Differ, has confirmed that the social platform for university students is to close. (Link)
IKT Norge argues the case for a national digital platform of courses and learning opportunities. (Link)
Kahoot! and Clever have been recognized in District Administration’s Top EdTech Product Awards. (Link)
Wittario will collaborate with Kristiania University College to promote “Work Integrated Learning” across the curriculum. (Link)
News from Sweden
Anyone (“The instant professional network”) has raised SEK 15 million in a new funding round with Zenith Venture Capital, Antler and Cavalry Ventures. (Link)
ILT Education launches Polylino Familie, a consumer-facing product, in Germany. (Link)
Latest figures from Läromedelsföretagen show significant differences in the amount Swedish municipalities invest in teaching materials. (Link)
Natur & Kultur's digital teaching aids now feature AI-powered speech synthesis across different languages. (Link)
Skolon confirms agreements with Aschehoug and Fagbokforlaget - they’re now working with all major Norwegian publishers. (Link)
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