UK EdTech companies secure Series A funding and seed capital investment

admin — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 11:19:29 +0000

May 2012 was a good month for UK EdTech firms raising Series A funding and seed capital:

Quipper, the London-based e-learning start-up led by Masa Watanabe, a co-founder of Japanese mobile social gaming company DeNA, raised £2.3m of Series A funding. The round has been financed by three investors: Atomico, the technology venture capital firm led by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström, Globis, the Japanese venture capital firm, and Benesse, the Japanese education and publishing company. Quipper’s mobile app allows users to answer a series of questions and the app can also be used as a platform for users, to create their own quiz programmes.

Flooved, a pre-revenue semantic web based platform for digital textbooks, raised £400k from investors to support the platform’s launch in September. £200k has been invested by Lord Ashcroft’s Anne Street Partners with a further £100k from Stephan Shakespeare, co-founder and CEO of YouGov. The remaining £100k has come from three angel investors. London-based Flooved aims to provide students with access to all of their academic content including textbooks, videos and journals on any web enabled device for a monthly subscription of £20 or £200 for the calendar year.

Autology World, the personalised learning search engine for schools, secured a further £330k investment from returning investors including North West Fund 4 Digital & Creative (NWF4). In June 2011, NWF4 invested £375k for “a substantial equity stake”, alongside £285k of further investment from a syndicate of private investors including Angel investor Niels Montanana. The company is also looking to raise a further £200k from a new investor.

Cambridge-based startup Knowledge Transmission raised £106k from the Cambridge Capital Group of angel investors. Knowledge Transmission develops mobile learning products for publishers, universities and private education providers. In April the company signed a three year deal with Hodder Education to develop mobile apps for its “Teach Yourself” language range. The company was founded in 2010 by CEO Sam Loose and CTO Paulo Castro.

Further information on these transactions and news and analysis on over 50 companies across the education industry can be found in the June issue of The Assignment Report. If you’re not already a subscriber you can sign up for a free, two-issue trial at www.theassignmentreport.com

UK education market remains “challenging” for many companies across the industry

admin — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 09:52:00 +0000

The UK education market remains “challenging” according to recently published accounts from a variety of companies across the industry. In July’s issue of The Assignment Report we look at the recent numbers from a range of companies including Findel, The Consortium, WJEC, CACHE, Immersive Education, Epic Group, Synarbor, Havelock Europa and Woodspeen Training. There’s also an update of last month’s M&A activity within the industry and the recent funding round for Autology World. For more information visit www.theassignmentreport.com

Meissa » autology

UK EdTech companies secure Series A funding and seed capital investment

UK education market remains “challenging” for many companies across the industry