Nordic EdTech News #82: 2023-02-06
Your Weeks 4 - 5 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 the companies who lead the future of learning. If you’d like to find out more, drop me an email.
Good morning and welcome to today’s Nordic EdTech News. Whilst I cannot believe that it’s a year since we first did this, I’m delighted to release the 2023 Nordic EdTech funding report in an exclusive collaboration with Brighteye Ventures.
The link to download the full report follows below, but in summary:
Across the eight Nordic and Baltic countries, $140 million was raised in VC investment in 2022. Mirroring global trends, that’s a yoy drop of 55%, but it is still the region’s second highest total, $35M higher than 2018, its third largest year.
The number of deals done stayed relatively stable in 2022 despite challenging macro conditions. 41 deals were done in 2022, compared to 45 deals in 2021.
As an ecosystem, this deal count places the Nordic and Baltics second in Europe behind the UK. It’s fourth by total funding secured.
Average deal size in 2022 was $3.4M. That’s down from $6.9M in 2021 but is double 2020’s $1.7M.
EdTechs in Denmark again raised the most funding in 2022 ($57million) but most deals were concluded by EdTechs in Sweden (11 deals in 2022).
Huge thanks to Hege Tollerud and Rhys Spence at Brighteye Ventures for all of their help and hard work in pulling this together. Also welcome to Isabella Vahdati, who’s recently joined the Brighteye team - she’ll mainly be covering the Nordics and the UK. (Link)
This Nordic report should be read alongside Brighteye’s 2023 European Edtech Funding Report. That can be found here and a recording of the online launch event here.
Whilst on funding news, Icelandic learning platform LearnCove has closed a new $900K funding round (Link) almost exactly a year after their last. The business reports that their number of customers has quadrupled within the year - this new round will help handle and continue this growth.
Congratulations also to Sweden’s NUITEQ, who recently announced that it had been acquired by its US-based partner Clear Touch (Link). The companies have been working together for almost a decade and will now have “even stronger collaboration, integration and alignment.”
Notable EdTech cooperation to report in Finland where the new Wilma Links platform will give teachers access to “a new free digital desktop that brings the tools of the teaching world into one view.” Freeed, Kide Science and Qridi are the first partners involved - important to note that Wilma is used by almost all Finnish teachers.
Sari Hurme-Mehtälä, Founder and CEO at Kide Science, along with Ingrid Skrede, Co-Founder & CMO at Ludenso, will be on the SXSW EDU stage next month talking about K-12 Innovations from Europe. Do support them if you’re attending.
As I’ve reported in previous newsletters, there’s significant and ongoing national / regional government investment in EdTech across Lithuania. This summary gives an excellent overview of work to improve infrastructure, buy digital teaching tools and improve teachers’ digital skills.
CORRECTION - NEN #81 referenced Learningbank’s Nordic Learning Trends report but linked to the 2022 not the 2023 version. Apologies. The right link is here.
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 Ministry of Children and Education allocated DKK 49 million to organisations (including Save the Children and Børns Vilkår) to fund digital initiatives for children and young people. (Link)
The relaunched Digital Start website will help students and teachers “become strong digital citizens.” (Link)
If you’re active in the Danish teaching resources market, then Læremiddel.dk’s 2022 Annual Report is a must-read.
Shape Robotics confirms a new distribution agreement with Poland-based Aktin. Initially, the partnership includes a minimum of 100 schools in 2023 making a total billing value of DKK 3.5 million. (Link)
News from Estonia
How to make STEM more attractive? In Estonia, an educational TV science contest is one answer! (Link)
Big congrats to 99math, who won the EdTech of the Year Award at the 2022 Estonian Startup Awards (Link). They also recently announced that the site “now has more users than the population of Estonia.” (Link)
Kelly Lilles of ALPA Kids has been named in the third cohort of the European Female EdTech Fellowship. (Link)
News from Finland
Four Ferries confirm that their maths tools will now be available outside the classroom via Gemma - an online personal maths trainer. (Link)
An online survey published by Freeed shows that Finnish teachers are cautiously positive about the use of AI in their classrooms. (Link)
Funzi CEO, Aape Pohjavirta, on what South Africa can learn from Finland to bridge skills gaps. (Link)
Heini Karppinen (CEO Edtech Finland) has joined HundrED as COO. (Link)
The Finnish National Agency for Education’s quality criteria for high-quality digital learning solutions has now been published in English. (Link)
WWF Finland developed two mobile learning lessons on Seppo to help students learn about their nearby waterways. (Link)
Sparkmind.vc’s Kai Talas on how AI can be harnessed for learning. (Link)
News from Iceland
The Northstack Funding Report reveals that over $380 million was poured into all Icelandic startups in 2022. (Link)
News from Latvia
Google.org has given Riga TechGirls a $250,000 grant for the implementation of educational programmes to improve national digital skills. (Link)
Datorium, the programming school, will be running a Python programming course for girls in association with Tietoevry. (Link)
News from Lithuania
The National Education Agency is looking for cooperation with EdTech companies who can “offer innovative information technologies and smart solutions for education.” (Link)
Interesting post from Darius Kniūkšta, Co-founder of Three Cubes, about “how and why video games will bring the biggest revolution to education since the creation of public schools.” (Link)
News from Norway
The researchers behind the recent Grunndig report are holding a webinar titled: What is appropriate use of digital technology in school? 13th Feb. (Link)
Former Attensi CEO, Anne Lise Waal, has confirmed that she’s joining Aiba, a tool that detects fake profiles, online grooming and toxicity across online games and social media. (Link)
Great to see IKT-Norge confirm that the Norwegian Classroom pavilion will be returning to BETT next month. (Link)
Kahoot! ranks #3 as the coolest brand among European Millennials and Gen Z’ers according to YPulse’s brand data tracker. (Link)
New HE-focused report from SIKT prepares “the ground for the acquisition and introduction of the learning and assessment platforms of the future.” (Link)
The University of Oslo’s rector announces plans to start a global digital university. (Link)
News from Sweden
Preschools, primary schools, upper secondary schools, SFI and adult education institutions can now use the national framework agreements for digital and printed teaching materials. (Link)
CodeEasy, “the world's most ambitious programming platform” is now available for teachers. (Link)
Humly confirm the launch of Humly Academy to provide growth and professional development opportunities for supply educators. (Link)
Johan Malm has been named as the new MD of Ping Pong. (Link)
Michaela Sti will be the new project manager for Swedish Edtest (Link) as the programme launches a new partnership with UK-based Educate. (Link)
TechSverige continues to argue the case for the increased digitization of schools.(Link)
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