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SPOTLIGHT:
Record Funding for Edtech
For those just now entering the
workforce, vocational training and
ongoing education — even in the
form of micro certifications — is
proving increasingly important and
desirable to employers, and critical
for employees. And, companies
providing this training are getting
funded like never before.
Global edtech started the last
decade with $500M of venture
capital invested in 2010 and finished
32x higher at $16.1B in 2020,
nearly 2x the previous investment
record in 2018. And, almost half
of the transactions were focused
on workforce, illustrating the
widespread and fundamental shifts
the workplace is undergoing.
One of these transactions was
Crehana's $17.5M Series A, which
closed in December 2020. Crehana
is an on-demand learning platform
for creative and digital professionals
out of Peru. Anyone in Latin America
with a smartphone can get quickly
trained in micro certifications
spanning everything from
entrepreneurship to
3D animation on
the platform. The
company has
benefited from
significant
tailwinds
throughout
the pandemic,
with revenue growing by
300% as more people have
turned to online learning.
As we entered the new year, we
predicted that edtech would be one
of the fastest-growing segments
in many venture firms' portfolios
in 2021 — including our own. We
expected to see the continued rise
of workforce development and
adjacent sub-sectors, fueled by
meaningful changes in consumer
attitudes and behaviors towards
existing technologies, including a
newfound willingness to integrate
edtech components into curriculums
and students' learning journeys.
Ironhack, a company based in
Miami and Spain offering intensive
tech bootcamps across Europe
and North and South America,
raised $20M in its latest round
of funding in January 2021. In a
similar space, Wyncode (below
left), a Miami-based provider of
bootcamps in data science, digital
marketing, UX design, and web
development, was acquired by
Brainstation in January, as well.
Another company that secured
new funding this year — a $15M
Series B — is ELSA (above
right), an app that helps people
learn English by using speech
recognition technology to correct
pronunciation. ELSA allows
professionals previously limited
