Dunce Deals #15 - Awari, Boddle, Pico, and Kaipod
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 Contra. Before Dunce, I founded three companies, NetGravity (IPO), Rocketship Public Schools (12k students) and Zeal (sold 2018).
Thoughts
This tweet pretty much summarizes the way I’m spending my weeks these days. There is so much innovation happening at all levels of education right now.
Based on the experience of running @edpitches, I wrote this piece to implore founders to get themselves out there and get feedback on their ideas.
I hope everyone is starting to see the signs of spring and the thawing of covid as we are here in Palo Alto. It comes none too soon for everyone’s mental health. I can almost imagine starting to spend my days in coffee shops with founders again.
Deals
Awari
Description: Lambda School for Brazil
Website: awari.com.br
Founder: Fabio Muniz
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fabiowlmuniz/
Email: fabio@awari.com.br
Stage: Seed
Raising: Yes
Current Dunce Investment: No
Notes: Awari has tuition and a job guarantee, so slightly different model than Lambda. I have not invested in Brazil yet, but it may be the best market in the world for creating new developers.
Boddle
Description: Gamified education platform for k-12
Website: boddlelearning.com
Founder: Edna Martinson
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edna-martinson-0513b63b
Email: edna@boddlelearning.com
Stage: Seed
Raising: Yes
Current Dunce Investment: No
Deck: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YvlCFBs811_1iKB8WeTstcLhiEegekAr/view?usp=sharing
Notes: As many of you know, k-12 school sales is not my thing, but Edna is very impressive and she and her co-founder have good game industry chops.
Kaipod
Description: Standards-aligned micro schools
Website: kaipodlearning.com
Founder: Amar Kumar
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kumaramar/
Email: amar@kaipodlearning.com
Stage: Pre-seed
Raising: Yes
Current Dunce Investment: No
Deck: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19UKbK3gxZycgYvpA9Jc6x56ftetg5i-L/view?usp=sharing
Notes: I absolutely love the micro schools space. Prenda has been going nuts, GalileoXP growing like a weed. I think micro schools are the parent friendly version of home schooling. If you don’t think a big public school is right for you, don’t have the money for a private school, and don’t have the time to home school, micro schools are great. Kaipod’s twist is that it works with Connections and K12, the two big virtual curriculum providers, so students get a standards-aligned curriculum.
Pico
Description: ClassEdu for Europe
Website: pico-edu.com
Founder: Dr. Fabian Schrempf
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drschrempf/
Email: fabian.schrempf@googlemail.com
Stage: Seed
Raising: Yes
Current Dunce Investment: No
Notes: I’m pretty convinced that what matters in the teacher space is new student acquisition more than enabling tools, which is why folks like Outschool are doing so well. It is possible that Europe evolves differently and always possible (likely?) I am very wrong!