Right Side Capital Management is a venture capital firm that helps startups build their company. It invests exclusively in the pre-seed round of technology startups and makes 75-100 investment per year. The firms prefers to invest in diversified technology sectors such as the internet and cloud companies. RSCM was established in 2010 and is based in San Francisco, California.

Right Side Capital Management

Techstars is a global platform that provides investment and innovation. Through the Techstars Worldwide Entrepreneur Network, founders and their teams connect with other entrepreneurs, experts, mentors, alumni, investors, community leaders, and corporate partners who will help their companies grow. Techstars operates four divisions: Techstars Mentorship-Driven Accelerator Program supercharges success and Techstars Startup Programs inspire, educate, and connect entrepreneurs. Techstars Venture Capital Fund invests in innovative and disruptive companies. Techstars Corporate Innovation Partnerships help brands create products and services. Techstars' accelerator portfolio includes more than 1,000 companies with a market cap of $8.1 billion.

Techstars

TenOneTen Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in start-ups that apply data and technology to disrupt existing industries.

TenOneTen Ventures

Alpha Edison is a venture capital firm that focuses on technology-driven innovation. The firm helps entrepreneurs to build a better world. Alpha Edison is an early-stage venture firm that partners with courageous entrepreneurs to build industry-changing technology platforms. It helps founders to create new markets, unlock latent demand, and scale businesses by sharing its research and expertise in business model innovation.

Alpha Edison

Waverley Capital is a venture capital firm that focuses on early-stage startup investments. Moreover, the firm targets to invest in the media and entertainment sectors. Founded in 2018 by Edgar Bronfman Jr. and Daniel Leff, Waverley Capital is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.

Waverley Capital

Maveron is a consumer-only venture capital firm. Founded in 1998 by Dan Levitan and Howard Schultz, the firm has offices in San Francisco and Seattle. Maveron investments include Zulily, Allbirds, Common, August Home, eBay, Capella Education, General Assembly, and Trupanion. Maveron's name was coined from the words ''maverick'' and ''vision.'' Maveron funds seed and Series A companies that empower consumers to live on their terms. Based in SF and Seattle and invest coast-to-coast. Maveron has adopted the Diversity Term Sheet Rider.

Maveron

Lux Capital manages over $5 billion in assets focused on founding, seed, early-stage, and growth investments at the intersection of technology and the sciences. Lux takes an active role in helping entrepreneurs build successful businesses in high-growth sectors. Its investment team has built over 20 companies from scratch. Lux's investment strategy ensures portfolio companies are better connected, have a deeper insight, and command industry leadership faster than their competitors.

Lux Capital

The Amazon Alexa Fund is Amazon’s venture capital fund investing in artificial intelligence, frontier tech, voice, robotics, and digital health across consumer and enterprise. We invest in early- to growth-stage companies globally. To learn more, visit us at alexafund.com.

Amazon Alexa Fund

Carbon Ventures is a VC fund focused on delivering top quartile returns, while reducing carbon emissions through early stage tech investing. Technologies: Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing. Industries: Energy, Transportation, Agriculture, Industrial Processes, Waste Management.

Carbon Ventures

Novel Effect

Seattle-based Novel Effect is the leader in voice-driven media and entertainment. Through the use of voice, Novel Effect’s products blend physical and digital worlds to create immersive and interactive experiences across books, video and games.

Novel Effect is a platform containing a library of family-friendly e-books and soundscapes. Using smart voice recognition, the app follows the readers’ voices as they read aloud and responds at just the right time with music, sounds, and character voices to bring stories to life, and promote literacy, imagination, and fun among children up to 12 years of age.

Remote learning is driving an education technology revolution.

EdTech: K-12

Novel Effect on LinkedIn: Happy School Librarian Day from the Novel Effect team! Tag your…

Novel Effect is a platform containing a library of family-friendly e-books and soundscapes. Using smart voice recognition, the app follows the readers’ voices as they read aloud and responds at just the right time with music, sounds, and character voices to bring stories to life, and promote literacy, imagination, and fun among children up to 12 years of age.Novel Effect is available in three versions: free, premium (providing unlimited access for families), and premium classroom (providing unlimited access for educators). As of May 2018, the app had been downloaded more than 50,000 times and had about 10,000 active monthly users. As of December 2020, the platform hosted a library of about 750 books.In December 2020, the company partnered with edu-tainment provider, The Jim Henson Company, to include some of Henson’s characters and books on the Novel Effect platform. Under the partnership, hundreds of titles will be added to Novel Effect’s collection, with some new books being published exclusively on the app. Besides books, the two companies are also planning to release voice-interactive television programs over streaming platforms in 2021.

Founded in 2016, BookNook is an online literacy platform designed for learners in grades 1-5. Partnering with school districts and non-profit organizations, the company focuses on human-to-human learning and works with children one-on-one or in small groups, enabling it to gather rich, observational data. As of June 2021, the company partnered with hundreds of schools, school districts, and non-profits across 35 states.BookNook differs from other digital literacy tools by not requiring students to take formative assessments to check for their understanding. Rather, the platform lets teachers record qualitative data on oral fluency, such as whether a student pauses at punctuation marks as they read aloud, or reads in set phrases. Students can also record self-reflections on the platform.In June 2021, the company partnered with MIND Research Institute, a neuroscience and education social impact organization and creator of the PreK-8 visual instructional program ST Math, to deliver a High Dosage Tutoring program (HDT) for math to K-8 students to address unfinished learning. BookNook tutors will deliver tutoring sessions using the ST Math program over BookNook’s synchronous learning platform. The company launched a new teacher application portal at booknooktutor.com in October 2021, giving experienced teachers the opportunity to apply to become BookNook virtual tutors on its platform. BookNook intends to engage 10,000 virtual teachers to support 80,000 students by the end of the 2021-2022 school year.

BookNook

Story2 uses its proprietary Moments Method writing system, its StoryBuilder software, and live online group coaching to help high school students and professionals improve their writing, speaking, storytelling, and collaboration skills.The company aims to help different segments with their specific needs: students with college admission and scholarship essays, professionals preparing for interviews and creating cover letters, and business teams to improve sales, recruiting and company messaging through effective storytelling.Since 2013, Story2 has worked with more than 200,000 individuals in 21 countries with college admission essays, interview preparation, and pitching ideas. The company is expanding into China and India in 2020 and plans to focus on helping science and technology students improve their communication and leadership skills.

Story2

<div>
 
 Vooks offers a subscription-based, ad-free curated library of children's books converted to video with narration and some slow-paced animation, allowing children to read along while watching. Aimed at young children aged 6 months to 8 years, Vooks promotes reading aloud to develop fluency and comprehension. The company was founded by siblings Marshall Bex and Shannon Bex, and Russell Hirtzel, and is reportedly the first-ever streaming service for books with illustrations, read-along text and animations.
 
 
 In February 2020, Vooks raised USD 12 million in Series A funding; however, the investors and purpose of the funding were not disclosed. In November 2020, the company raised USD 21.9 million in equity investments from more than 30 investors.
 
 
 In November 2020, Vooks partnered with United Way of Metropolitan Dallas (UWMD), a community-based, nonprofit social change organization, and Atmos Energy, a natural gas distributor, to provide around 78,000 one-year Vooks subscriptions for children aged 3 to 6 and early education teachers in the Greater Dallas area. The program is funded by a USD 1 million contribution from Atmos Energy, and contributes to UWMD’s Aspire United 2030 education goal of increasing the number of North Texas students reading at grade level by third grade by 50%. Similarly, in March 2021, the company partnered with Reach Out and Read Of Greater New York (ROR GNY), a nonprofit organization of healthcare providers who promote early literacy. The partnership aims to provide more than 75,000 preschool children with one-year Vooks subscriptions starting in March 2021.
 
 
 In July 2021, it was reported that Vooks is offering its service to authors and producers as a way of quickly testing ideas with audiences through simple animated shorts. Thereby, Vooks expands its library of original content while authors and producers get real-time performance data.
 
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Vooks

Xeropan offers an AI-powered, game-based approach to learning English through 14 of the most widely-spoken languages. As of October 2020, the app had more than one million players.

Xeropan

<div>
 
 GoGuardian is a provider of student security software solutions to help educators identify learning patterns, protect students from harmful and distracting content, and support students at risk of self-harm and suicide. As of August 2021, the company had partnered with more than 10,000 schools in the US, covering more than 22 million students.  
 
 
 In November 2020, GoGuardian announced a 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/1863">
 merger with Pear Deck
 </a>
 to deepen the support provided to students and teachers and improve their in-class experience. Founded in 2014, Pear Deck is a student engagement platform that allows teachers to create, edit, and launch multimedia content and formative assessments on students' devices to increase student engagement. At the time of the merger, Pear Deck was used by 8 million educators and students in more than 17,000 schools worldwide. Pear Deck co-founder and Chief Educator, Michal Eynon-Lynch, will join the GoGuardian Board of Directors. In May 2022, the company acquired 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/10683">
 TutorMe,
 </a>
 Zovio’s tutoring services business, for USD 55 million in cash to strengthen its product offering. 
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In August 2021, GoGuardian secured a USD 200 million investment from Tiger Global Management. The funds will be allocated for product innovation, talent acquisition, and business development. 
 
 
 
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GoGuardian

Businesses providing education delivery solutions such as learning management systems (LMS), and tech solutions for data analytics, administration, and other services to educational institutions.

Businesses delivering curriculum-based learning, particularly relating to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education to educational institutions and individual students.

Mostly for-profit corporations running state-funded, tuition-free schools as an alternative to traditional public schools.

Businesses providing extra-curricular education relating to the arts, hobbies, and life skills, and entities providing college and career guidance.

Businesses delivering English language arts (ELA) education, and language learning and literacy support to educational institutions and individual students.

Platforms providing students with after-school tutoring support on an individual or group basis.

Businesses delivering early childhood education, special education, and social-emotional learning (SEL) programs to educational institutions and individual students.

Entities providing professional development resources and tools for teachers, and those providing testing and assessment solutions to educational institutions and educators.

Platforms providing student-parent-teacher-school communication and networking solutions, and those providing search, reference, and marketplace solutions.

Companies that use GenAI as a core part of their product offering for EdTech: K12 solutions

Uses GenAI to provide interactive AI tutors, create personallized learning pathways,  and gamified learning solutions

Uses AI/ML to create personalized learning plans, adaptive learning platforms, and intelligent tutoring systems

Adaptive learning platforms, personalized learning plans, and AI-powered analytics provide insight into student performance

Learning platforms that promote an inclusive and equitable educational culture for underserved communities

Novel Effect

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