Dunce Deals #8 - Koala, Strive, and CoderHouse
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
I’m feeling guilty, but not that guilty. I decided California covid sucked and am spending a couple of months in Hawaii. Hawaii should be running “safest place on earth” ad campaigns everywhere right now. Getting here is scary, but once you’re here, everyone is tested and it just feels better. Anyway, here is the first 2021 edition of Dunce Deals. I was >really< trying to not write this first edition until February, but at this point, my deal backlog is so large that it is stressing me out, so here goes. Starting right off with a bang, here is the third in my series on Finding Product Market fit - this one is on establishing habits with users.
News
Lambda’s Beta test of its fellowship program was incredibly successful. The way it works is you get a Lambda grad free for a month (Lambda pays them) to see if they could be a good fit for your company. It’s amazing how much better a hiring process this is than non-traditional candidates going through interviews. If you are interested in finding engineers for your company or portfolio companies, here is the program — Lambda Fellows — and here’s a link to have a chat with Lambda to find out more —- Calendly. Obviously as a Lambda board member, I’m biased, but I do this for the mission and finding the right way to get the rest of the world into coding and tech gets me excited.
Congrats to Prendea who are growing too fast for me to print and just started YC’s winter fellows. A $20/month subscription for all your kids can eat live learning is a good good thing.
One of my favorite founder communities is Transcend Network, which focuses on founders starting edtech and future of work companies. Their Winter21 applications are due Feb 5. Founders can apply here.
Deals
The same Dunce theme that everything in learning is going live. Three companies in different segments taking a shot at the transformation.
Koala
Description: Live animated classroom platform
Website: teachwithkoala.com
Founders: Xavier Lesage & Benjamin Roux
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/xavier-lesage-moretti/ & https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-roux-3b224237/
Email: xavier@einsteinstudios.io
Stage: Seed
Raising: Yes
Current Dunce Investment: No
Notes: I’m still not sure that tools for online k12 teachers is a big enough category. A marketplace like Outschool or large live class subscription like Prendea seems like the best place to invest. However, I really like those pushing forward the interactions between student and teacher and getting us away from just Zoom windows.
Strive
Description: Management upskilling for enterprise
Website: strive.co
Founder: Will Houghteling
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/will-houghteling-3b956710
Email: will@strive.co
Stage: Series A
Raising: Yes
Current Dunce Investment: No
Notes: Will Houghteling is a Minerva vet, and is applying a lot of what he learned at the pioneer of live learning to management training.
CoderHouse
Description: Platzi Live
Website: coderhouse.com
Founder: Christian Patiño
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-patiño-1038061a
Email: chris@coderhouse.com
Stage: Seed
Raising: Yes
Current Dunce Investment: No
Notes: CoderHouse has figured out a live large-class + project model that works at a very affordable price. Like Platzi, a huge success in Latam, but live.