EduTech

At this point in American political history, many of us have become inured to misinformation and proliferation of fake news. Still, it was startling when the “West Wing Reads” email from the White House hit my mailbox at 12:16...

If you want to learn Mandarin, living in Beijing would be ideal.  The next best thing? A virtual reality classroom that teleports you to the city. IBM Research’s Cognitive and Immersive Systems Lab, known as the Mandarin Project, enables...

PlayShifu, a maker of augmented reality educational toys, raised $7 million in a Series A round led by Chiratae, Inventus Capital and BIF. Three-year-old PlayShifu, with offices in California and India, said it will use the funding to expand...

South Korean edutech startup Riiid said it has secured $18 million in Series C funding, tapping into Asian countries’ demand for robotic tutors that makers claims are faster and cheaper than humans.  Riiid focuses on the English language test TOEIC, and...

Byju’s, which has been called India’s first edutech unicorn, continues its fundraising spree with a $150 million investment led by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, which will help the company with its efforts to expand globally. The money brings total...

Educational Testing Service (ETS), the world’s largest educational testing non-profit, dipped further into educational technology with its $2 million investment in an accelerator operated with LearnLaunch. ETS Accelerate will focus on startups addressing future job skills, as well as...

Google, criticized for fake news on its websites and weak privacy controls, is hoping for social impact with a program that aims to teach schoolkids how to safely utilize the Internet.   The company, forced to close its Google+ social...

Martin Basiri, CEO of ApplyBoard, started the company as an international student from Iran in 2015. ApplyBoard, an Ontario-based edutech company, snagged $55 million in series B funding. As more money is pouring into artificial intelligence-powered college counseling startups,...

Perspectives: Opinions from our network of advisors, investors, operators and analysts on the risks and opportunities they see. Despite the growing importance of the startup culture in keeping the US economy competitive, academia lags behind, preferring the tranquil process of turning out employees for corporations...

Perspectives: Opinions from our network of advisors, investors, operators and analysts on the risks and opportunities they see. Netflix has made only four acquisitions in its history: the comic book company MillarWorld, Albuquerque’s ABQ Studios, the historic Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, and now small children’s...

On Our Radar: Deals we are paying attention to for their impact on industry. 360Learning, an e-learning training platform for business, raised $41 million in a Series B investment to fund an aggressive push into the U.S. and U.K. Investors in the round included Bpifrance, Hi Inov -...

Sound Businesses: Profiles of companies and business models we are keeping an eye on. Tom Sosnoff, Founder and Co-CEO of the online financial network tastytrade, says he holds out little hope for those media companies still trying to survive with a revenue stream based on advertising....

On Our Radar: Deals we are paying attention to for their impact on industry. Viacom’s Nickelodeon has acquired Sparkler, an early-childhood learning platform that measures children’s developmental progress. The company’s technology will be used to bolster Nickelodeon’s preschooler-focused Noggin streaming service. Sparkler co-founder Kristen Kane has also been appointed Noggin’s...

On Our Radar: Deals we are paying attention to for their impact on industry. Tinkergarten, a nationwide ed-tech learning program for children through age 8, received $21 million in financing from WndrCo, a holding company run by former DreamWorks and Dropbox executives. WndrCo, led by Dreamworks founder and former...