Dunce Deals #7 - Ameritus Homes, Manara, and Tomorrow Education
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 will be my last post of 2020. My kids come back from school next week and I’m all in with them through the new year. As brief reflection, 2020 was as tough for me as many of you (but definitely not as tough as for others) - I got divorced, my mom got cancer, and everything in my life got thrown upside down by covid. On the other hand, I met an amazing woman, my mom is doing well with treatments so far, and Covid jumped many of my companies 5 years forward in scale and revenue in only 9 months. So all in all, 2020 is probably one to forget, but I am thankful it wasn’t worse.
News
As we end the year, I want to thank my amazing founders who are the reason I do what I do.
In early childhood, thank you Michael, and thank you Amy and Kevin!
In K12, thank you Amir, thank you Keith and Doug, thank you Vlad, thank you Mike, thank you Suren, thank you Basar and Melih, thank you Vivian and Ruby, thank you Cris, thank you Nitesh, thank you Garett, Indra, and Wesley, thank you Kelly, thank you Ryan and Maksim, thank you Rachel and Lyndsey, thank you Ben and Gonzalo, and thank you Hamdi, Sabri, and Hussein! May next year be as exciting for you as this one!
In adult learning, thank you Austen, thank you Gagan and Wes, thank you Neil and Lawrence, thank you Rahim and Joel, thank you Omar and Jack, thank you Mohsen, and thank you Naga!
And finally, in the future of work, thank you Ben and Gajus, thank you Chris, and thank you Dhru!
For some of you 2020 was a kick in the face, some of you had life-changing wind at your back, but you all handled it with grace, grit and scrappiness.
Deals
This week is a grab bag, following a few of my favorite themes.
More people learn to code (because it’s a positive feedback loop, more coders = more new startups they form)
Micro schools take over the world. Micro elderly care fits perfectly.
Disaggregate universities and find ways to create new programs for them, using their brand and signaling.
Manara
Description: Coding bootcamp for women in MENA
Website: manara.tech
Founder: Iliana Montauk
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ilianamontauk/
Email: iliana@manara.tech
Stage: Pre-seed
Raising: Yes
Current Dunce Investment: No
Notes: I like both MENA and women as segmentation for coding camps. They saw a big jump in quality of candidates when they went female-only, so leaning in to it.
Ameritus Homes
Description: Micro-Elderly Care
Website: Sorry, not yet
Founder: Raffi Sapire
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raphaelasapire
Email: raphaelasapire@gmail.com
Stage: Idea
Raising: Yes
Current Dunce Investment: No
Notes: Continuing the real-estate light approach that has worked so well for TinyCare in early childhood and Prenda in K12, Raffi is working on an elderly care model in private homes with up to eight seniors.
Tomorrow Education
Description: Master's programs partnered with accredited universities
Website: tomorrows.education
Founder: christian rebernik
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/crebernik/
Email: cr@tomorrows.education
Stage: Seed
Raising: Yes
Current Dunce Investment: No
Notes: If I were capable of making German investments (reporting kills me), I would invest in Tomorrow. Continues the theme of unbundling universities, this time by offering full Master’s degrees in a variety of subjects, partnering with well known local universities.