Dunce Deals #17 - Patika, Dorm, StudyStream
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 Beanstalk. Before Dunce, I founded three companies, NetGravity (IPO), Rocketship Public Schools (12k students) and Zeal (sold 2018).
Thoughts
On a personal note, I had my second Pfizer shot and it knocked me on my butt for two days, but I’m still very thankful. And now my cancer-free mom and my dad and I have been out to play golf a couple of times in the last two weeks, after they had literally been shut in their house for over a year. And it’s spring in California, so all feeling good. Here is a picture of my peach tree blooming.
As the market continues to spin faster, it’s really good to invest with companies day one, although I’m very thankful to those of you pre-empting rounds and giving me huge markups :) One of the challenges I experience both when investing and when startups raise from venture investors post-seed is helping founders differentiate cash from extended members of their team, and I write about that here.
News
Congrats to AppLovin who IPO’d Thursday. This is one of my very first angel investments when I was still doing adtech investing. My friend John Krystynak was founder and CTO. This is possibly the best execution for a startup I have ever seen, transforming themselves from a mobile ad install network to a gaming company set to dominate in the new IDFA world.
Deals
Patika
Description: Made-to-order devs from developing countries
Website: patika.dev
Founder: Gülcan Yayla
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gulcanyayla/
Email: gulcanyayla@gmail.com
Stage: Pre-Seed
Raising: Yes
Current Dunce Investment: No
Notes: Of course I love the flowering of companies like Henry, Manara, and Patika that are following in the footsteps of Lambda, especially as remote work becomes accepted practice for hiring devs all over the world. At the same time, I am very interested to see if Patika needs to evolve beyond a mere finishing school and placement agency for its devs to become essential for tech hirers.
Dorm
Description: ISA-based creator school
Website: joindorm.com
Founder: Taras Polischuk
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/taraspolischuk/
Email: taras@hrtechtank.com
Stage: Seed
Raising: Yes
Current Dunce Investment: No
Notes: This may be my favorite pivot ever. A year ago when we chatted, they were building a podcast curation app. The new version of the company looks a lot more interesting. They want to help nascent creators learn the tricks to build a large brand and monetize on a one on one basis. I’m not sure if this will evolve more towards a school or a scaled business management service, but very interesting!
StudyStream
Description: Watch other people study (really!)
Website: studystream.live
Founder: Ti Xu
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tianyouxu/
Email: tianyou@kc.institute
Stage: Seed
Raising: Yes
Current Dunce Investment: No
Notes: As long-time readers will remember, StudyStream, like Bindr, builds an app that allows students to study together silently. They originally were going to stream it, but now doing it through Zoom. Here’s the thing. They figured out Tik Tok. You can talk to them about their astounding acquisition numbers. While everything else looks like any other seed stage company, congrats to the StudyStream team on cracking this channel wide open.