Dunce Deals #4 - Remotely, Studio and Rize
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).
News
SV Academy launched this great customer success course with Udemy.
Lambda School formally unveiled their fellowship program for Lambda students to intern at companies for a month. Who doesn’t love try before you buy :) This is something I’ve been passionate about for a while.
Congrats Mystery on a nice outcome with Discovery Education! It was so much fun to work with Keith and Doug on this and looking forward to what comes next.
Thoughts
This week is part 4 of my 20 education trends in 2020, I hope you enjoyed! My next two series are on Finding Product Market Fit and the way to make experimentation the core of your startup.
Deals:
Please feel free to reach out directly to the founders or I am happy to connect you. I would love it if you would send me deals you think I missed. I invest in edtech and future of work, ideally idea and pre-seed, but seed and Series A are awesome too.
Remotely
Description: Building infrastructure for micro-schools and learning pods.
Website: remotelyeducation.org
Founder: Jenn Watts
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenn-watts-she-her-hers-bb66373/
Email: jwattsindy@gmail.com
Stage: Pre-seed
Raising: Yes
Dunce Deal: No
Notes: What I like about this deal is Jenn. She previously worked in the White House, the Indiana Dept of Ed, and is very sophisticated about the politics of education. My hope is that Remotely goes all the way and starts building free public micro-schools.
Studio
Description: A live cohort-based professional network for freelancers.
Website: studioglobal.carrd.co
Founder: Mike del Ponte
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeponte06
Email: mikedelponte@gmail.com
Stage: Pre-seed
Raising: Yes
Dunce Deal: No
Notes: Between live social network, cohort-based approach, and focus on freelancers, Mike is positioning at the intersection of some big trends. Very early, but one to watch.
Rize Education
Description: Disaggregating academics for mid-tier colleges, allowing them to focus on the physical college experience.
Website: thelcmc.org
Founder: Kevin Harrington
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-harrington-0b2238100
Email: kharrington@adrian.edu
Stage: Pre-seed
Raising: Yes
Dunce Deal: No
Notes: This is a really interesting one. I’ve been writing about the division between care and academics in k12 for a while. Rize is bringing this to colleges, working with a consortium of mid-tier colleges to offer academics online, allowing them to share costs and focus on the in-person experience for their students. Awesome!