Dunce Deals 8/1/20 - Sora, Fiveable, and Crowdcast
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 Supernow. Before Dunce, I founded three companies, NetGravity (IPO), Rocketship Public Schools (12k students) and Zeal (sold 2018).
Thoughts
In case you thought the spring was crazy for schools, Fall is going to be much crazier. As parents scramble to find childcare/pods/microschools for their kids, they are also getting a lot more active about trying to make sure the next two years aren't wasted years academically. With the challenges most traditional schools have, there has been a huge influx of parents looking for better answers. This week's deals have three of the winners.
Deals
Sora
Description: Live online private high school
Website: soraschools.com
Founder: Garrett Smiley
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gwsmiley
Email: garrett@soraschools.com
Stage: Pre-seed
Raising: Yes
Dunce Deal: Yes
Notes: Sora is one of my idea stage companies so we have been working together for over a year. They have created an amazing online high school through zoom, the kind of school you wish you had gone to. They started with a dozen students last year and will quadruple to 50 for the Fall.
Fiveable
Description: $50 high school AP classes.
Website: fiveable.me
Founder: Amanda Doamaral
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adoamaral
Email: amanda@fiveable.me
Stage: Seed
Raising: Soon
Dunce Deal: No
Notes: In May, fiveable had 840,000 active students and made $100k. This Fall, they will offer those students $50 live courses in all 38 AP subject areas. They have realized that they are much better at teaching online than your local high school. They are also a prime example of a new trend around live classes at Netflix prices, by running large groups with the next generation of teaching tools.
Crowdcast
Description: platform for awesome live large-group classes
Website: crowdcast.io
Founder: Sai Hossain
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saidur/
Email: sai@crowdcast.io
Stage: Seed
Raising: Yes
Dunce Deal: No
Notes: I found out about crowdcast when two of my companies announced they were migrating off Zoom to this platform. Crowdcast is a platform for hosting classes of hundreds of students with a ton of interaction tools to make it feel both exciting and much more personal than those college lectures you fell asleep in. 100% organic, 400% growth since February, profitable :)
Here is the complete list of Dunce Investments:
Mystery Science - purchased by Discovery Education 2020
Swing - on-demand talent for the education market
Epic! - the best children’s books digitally for every classroom and every home
Kunduz - the leader in test prep for Turkey
Erudifi - loans for students going to vocational schools and higher ed in SE Asia.
Outschool - the best marketplace of live small classes for your k-12 student
Juni - Coding, Math, and English instruction 1-1 and small group
Lambda School - teaching students to code and get jobs in great companies
LingoKids - English learning for young children
Padlet - a modern document creation and sharing platform
TinyCare - micro-daycare centers
SV Academy - teaching students tech sales and getting them jobs in great companies
Sora - a better high school, completely online
Prenda - micro-schools to unlock your child’s talent
Galileo - the first online world school
Beanstalk - live classes for young children
GetSetup - live social network for seniors
Primer - live academic and social network for homeschoolers
Contra - social network for freelancers
Fourthrev - run digital bootcamps for universities focused on in-demand job skills
Marketerhire - marketing experts from that you can rent
Abwaab - the best test prep platform in MENA
Supernow - live classes and clubs for elementary and middle schoolers
Maven - the leader in cohort-based courses
Prendea - live classes and social network for students in LatAm
Kritik - peer grading for higher ed
Major League Hacking - hackathons and fellowships for university students
Reforge - live classes on Growth for upskilling professionals
Synthesis School - learn problem-solving by playing video games
AI Camp - AI for ages 13-18 from Stanford pHDs.
Bindr - Silent study groups online.
The Explanation Company - Google for kids.