The Kaplan EdTech Accelerator, powered by TechStars, is a three month intensive, deep immersion program for ten education startups. The program is being held on-site in New York, NY and will run from June-September. Startups will have access to top-notch industry mentors, resources and round-the-clock support as well as the chance to pitch to angel investors and venture capitalists at the end of the program.

Kaplan EdTech Accelerator

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

AT&T is a telecommunications company that provides wireless communications, local exchange, and long-distance services for consumers and businesses in the United States and internationally. The company offers its services in two segments: wireless and wireline. Its wireless segment offers various wireless voice, data, text, and other services. This segment sells various handsets, wirelessly enabled computers, and wireless data cards for personal computers through its owned stores, agents, and third-party retail stores. It also sells accessories comprising carrying cases, hands-free devices, batteries, battery chargers, and other items to consumers as well as to agents and third-party distributors. As of December 31, 2013, this segment served approximately 110 million wireless subscribers. The company’s wireline segment provides data services such as switched and dedicated transport, DSL internet access, network integration, managed web hosting, packet, and enterprise networking services as well as local, interstate, and international wholesale networking capacity solutions to other service providers. This segment also offers voice services consisting of local and long-distance services; wholesale switched access services to other service providers; and outsourcing and integration services as well as CPE and government-related services. This segment has served approximately 12 million retail consumers, 10 million retail businesses, and 2 million wholesale access lines. AT&T is headquartered in Dallas, Texas.

AT&T

Kaplan is a provider of educational services for individuals, schools, and businesses worldwide. It is a pioneer in the for-profit education industry, with a brand name that is synonymous with quality, innovation, and integrity. It offers a wide range of products and services for learners of all ages from kindergarten students mastering basic skills to professionals looking for career advancement.

Kaplan

Edovate Capital is a seed and early stage venture capital company that invests in the education sector.

Edovate Capital

New Markets Venture Partners is a leading, early and growth-stage, double bottom-line investor based in the Washington, D.C. Metro Area. New Markets makes direct investments in transformative education and workforce technology companies, which leads to superior financial returns and positive social impact. Each of our partners has many decades of investment and education experience. We maintain proprietary relationships with states, districts, universities and other centers of innovation that allow us to provide exceptional value to our portfolio companies. We help our companies succeed by adding value before, during, and after the investment process.

New Markets Venture Partners

Emerson Collective is an organization dedicated to removing barriers to opportunity so people can live to their full potential. Established and led by Laurene Powell Jobs, we center our work on education, immigration reform, the environment, and other social justice initiatives. We use a wide range of tools and strategies—partnering with entrepreneurs and experts, parents and policymakers, advocates and administrators—to develop and execute innovative solutions that will spur change and promote equality.

Emerson Collective

LearnPlatform

LearnPlatform is the edtech effectiveness system used by school districts, states, higher ed institutions, and their partners to organize, streamline, and rapidly analyze the impact of their technology and teaching practices. Over 150,000 educators across thousands of schools use LearnPlatform's free and paid services to save time, save money, and improve outcomes. The company delivering ground-breaking tools that save money, improve learning, and build the capacity of hundreds of thousands of educators and their organizations.

Founded in 2014 by Karl Rectanus, Ben Gilman, and Eric Teague, LearnPlatform is the developer of a SaaS educational technology (EdTech) effectiveness system for educators and administrators to help them research, select, and evaluate digital learning products that best meet their students’ current needs. K-12 districts, higher education institutions, and state education agencies are thus able to inventory their digital learning tools, ensure regulatory compliance, and measure outcomes while saving time and money. The solutions offered by the company include the Inventory Dashboard, a free tool for districts to view EdTech products accessed by students and educators from among LearnPlatform's library of more than 9,000 products, the EdTech Effectiveness System, which helps districts organize, streamline, and analyze their EdTech products, and EdTech Insights Pro, a paid service that provides insights into product usage and market trends. As of April 2021, LearnPlatform was used by thousands of schools and districts serving more than 4 million students.

Remote learning is driving an education technology revolution.

EdTech: K-12

New LearnPlatform by Instructure Report Finds Increases in More Unique Digital Tools Accessed by K-12 Institutions, Students, and Teachers

Founded in 2014 by Karl Rectanus, Ben Gilman, and Eric Teague, LearnPlatform is the developer of a SaaS educational technology (EdTech) effectiveness system for educators and administrators to help them research, select, and evaluate digital learning products that best meet their students’ current needs. K-12 districts, higher education institutions, and state education agencies are thus able to inventory their digital learning tools, ensure regulatory compliance, and measure outcomes while saving time and money. The solutions offered by the company include the Inventory Dashboard, a free tool for districts to view EdTech products accessed by students and educators from among LearnPlatform's library of more than 9,000 products, the EdTech Effectiveness System, which helps districts organize, streamline, and analyze their EdTech products, and EdTech Insights Pro, a paid service that provides insights into product usage and market trends. As of April 2021, LearnPlatform was used by thousands of schools and districts serving more than 4 million students.In April 2021, LearnPlatform launched the National EdTech Equity Dashboard, a free, publicly accessible, real-time presentation of trends in the overall engagement of educational technology (EdTech) in K-12 within the US across different groups. The trends, which include the past six months, encourage the analysis of driving factors and the identification of digital learning gaps. In August 2021, LearnPlatform launched Evidence Services to support EdTech providers in meeting ESSA's evidence-based reporting requirements.

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.

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

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

LearnPlatform

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