Liveoak Venture Partners is an early-stage venture capital firm focused on technology and technology-driven services in Texas. LiveOak is a full lifecycle investor, with most of its relationships beginning at the seed stage.

LiveOak Ventures

SJF Ventures is a venture capital partnership with offices in Durham, New York and San Francisco. Through its investment funds, the firm provides equity financings from $1MM to $10MM, solo or in syndicates, to companies seeking growth capital.  As a venture fund, SJF Ventures focuses on the resource efficiency, sustainability and technology-enhanced services sectors. Representative investment areas include efficiency and infrastructure, asset recovery including reuse and recycling, sustainable agriculture and food safety, health and wellness technology, education technology and digital media and marketing services.  When assessing investment opportunities, SJF Ventures is highly selective in identifying teams, markets and business models that can achieve rapid sales, strong profitability, and premium exits. In addition, SJF looks to partner with entrepreneurs who are committed to positively impacting the world through the businesses that they are creating.

SJF Ventures

Juvo Ventures is a venture capital firm that seeks to invest in early-stage technology-enabled education companies. Juvo Ventures empowers entrepreneurs, invests in innovative solutions, optimizes learner outcomes from early childhood to adulthood globally at scale, and maximizes investor returns.

Juvo Ventures

Susquehanna Growth Equity is a private equity and venture capital firm focused on growth and expansion-stage companies. The firm primarily invests in software and tech-enabled businesses in North America, Israel, and Western Europe. Areas of focus include enterprise software/SaaS, financial technology, supply chain/logistics, internet, healthcare technology, security infrastructure, human resources technology, and lending technology. The firm invests $5-$100+ million in companies with $5-$100+ million of revenue.

Susquehanna Growth Equity

The Stephens Group has partnered with entrepreneurs and management teams, building exceptional businesses long-term.

Stephens Group

Strada Education Innovation Fund is a Social impact org improving lives by forging clearer .

Strada Education Innovation Fund

American Student Assistance helps kids discover their educational and career opportunities.

American Student Assistance

SchooLinks

SchooLinks is a modern, AI-powered college and career readiness platform that helps K12 districts streamline their counseling activities and improve district outcomes. The student-centric experience creates a wealth of behavioral data, and its machine learning algorithms leverage those data to personalize college recommendations and content to further drive student engagement. SchooLinks then delivers actionable insights to counselors that help them act in real-time to become more effective. On a district level, the data models power a full suite of accountability tools to allow administrators to monitor and accomplish desired college and career readiness outcomes.

Founded in 2015 by Katie Fang as a website for high school students and parents to research college options, SchooLinks is a college and career readiness platform offering more than 80 features. SchooLinks guides students through the process of self-discovery, career education, college planning, and application. The platform’s machine learning algorithms use student data to personalize college recommendations and content. The platform also provides counselors with insights and tools for tracking, communication, course planning, and other administrative tasks. SchooLinks also offers district administrators a set of accountability tools to monitor and achieve desired college and career readiness outcomes. In June 2020, the company partnered with Common App, a college application platform, to help students to submit college application materials through using the SchooLinks platform. As of March 2021, the SchoolLinks platform served about 500,000 students across 14 US states.

Remote learning is driving an education technology revolution.

EdTech: K-12

SchooLinks Announces $80M Series B

Founded in 2015 by Katie Fang as a website for high school students and parents to research college options, SchooLinks is a college and career readiness platform offering more than 80 features. SchooLinks guides students through the process of self-discovery, career education, college planning, and application. The platform’s machine learning algorithms use student data to personalize college recommendations and content. The platform also provides counselors with insights and tools for tracking, communication, course planning, and other administrative tasks. SchooLinks also offers district administrators a set of accountability tools to monitor and achieve desired college and career readiness outcomes. In June 2020, the company partnered with Common App, a college application platform, to help students to submit college application materials through using the SchooLinks platform. As of March 2021, the SchoolLinks platform served about 500,000 students across 14 US states.In March 2021, SchooLinks raised USD 7 million in Series A funding to fund platform development to challenge the industry leader, Naviance—which was acquired by PowerSchool in February 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

SchooLinks

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