Dunce Deals 10/16/20 - Howdy and Trybu
Hi, I'm John Danner, Managing Director of Dunce Capital. Dunce Deals is my look at the most interesting deals and news from edtech and the future of work. In the last four years, I have made over two dozen pre-seed investments in the space including Lambda School, where I am on the board, Outschool, Prenda, and Supernow. Before Dunce, I founded three companies, NetGravity (IPO), Rocketship Public Schools (12k students) and Zeal (sold 2018).
Thoughts
I hope you are enjoying the great Fall weather and getting those heat lamps installed on the patio! Future of learning and work continues to be insane with covid tailwinds.
News
My good friend Neil at GetSetup, announced the Series A for his live destination site for seniors to learn and engage. I'm so excited to be working with Neil and Matt Greenfield of Rethink on this!
Deals
On to the deals, two that I particularly liked this week, I hope you do too! And let me know if you want a warm intro, I'm happy to do it.
Howdy
Description: Live peer-led discussion groups for professional skills development.
Website: joinhowdy.com
Founder: Darius Vaillancourt
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/p-darius-vaillancourt-99481928/
Email: darius@joinhowdy.com
Stage: Pre-seed
Raising: Raising
Dunce Deal: No
I love this space, I think there is definitely going to be a big company in this area between $200k university degrees and $50 static MOOC courses. Darius is a young sharp founder building a unique live peer-first curriculum.
Trybu
Trybu: Live online classes for kids in Mexico.
Website: trybu.mx
Founder: Eduardo Holschneider
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eduardo-max-5ba91a40
Email: eduardo@trybu.mx
Stage: Pre-seed
Raising: Yes
Dunce Deal: No
We have definitely entered the Outschool for X era (congrats Amir!) and I have seen so many concepts from founders the last few months. I'm dubious that straight knock-offs will be the answer and Eduardo is changing the live format to fit Mexico, a very large market.
Here is the complete list of Dunce Investments:
Mystery Science - purchased by Discovery Education 2020
Swing - on-demand talent for the education market
Epic! - the best children’s books digitally for every classroom and every home
Kunduz - the leader in test prep for Turkey
Erudifi - loans for students going to vocational schools and higher ed in SE Asia.
Outschool - the best marketplace of live small classes for your k-12 student
Juni - Coding, Math, and English instruction 1-1 and small group
Lambda School - teaching students to code and get jobs in great companies
LingoKids - English learning for young children
Padlet - a modern document creation and sharing platform
TinyCare - micro-daycare centers
SV Academy - teaching students tech sales and getting them jobs in great companies
Sora - a better high school, completely online
Prenda - micro-schools to unlock your child’s talent
Galileo - the first online world school
Beanstalk - live classes for young children
GetSetup - live social network for seniors
Primer - live academic and social network for homeschoolers
Contra - social network for freelancers
Fourthrev - run digital bootcamps for universities focused on in-demand job skills
Marketerhire - marketing experts from that you can rent
Abwaab - the best test prep platform in MENA
Supernow - live classes and clubs for elementary and middle schoolers
Maven - the leader in cohort-based courses
Prendea - live classes and social network for students in LatAm
Kritik - peer grading for higher ed
Major League Hacking - hackathons and fellowships for university students
Reforge - live classes on Growth for upskilling professionals
Synthesis School - learn problem-solving by playing video games
AI Camp - AI for ages 13-18 from Stanford pHDs.
Bindr - Silent study groups online.
The Explanation Company - Google for kids.