We are Entering a New EdTech Era — and Invested in Junto to be at the Forefront!
The first wave of EdTech was driven by horizontal learning platforms and learning management systems. The goal of these platforms was to make as much content as possible accessible to everyone, from everywhere. This vision came from a time when learning content was only accessible to a limited number of people who had the privilege of attending high-level educational institutions. Horizontal learning platforms like Udemy or Coursera have massively broadened online access to a high volume of learning content. This was already an important step forward in offline and online education.
In the meantime, we have passed a turning point. A few years ago, additional accessible content pieces provided extra benefit to online learners. Today, however, we are on a declining utility curve. People looking for information are swamped with unstructured and unfiltered learning content on numerous platforms such as Google, Linkedin, or Youtube.
Designing EdTech Solutions for a New Era
The same holds true for horizontal learning platforms. While anyone can access unlimited content for a low price, the content lacks structure and compelling delivery. Content is often not pre-processed nor quality checked, so its relevance is neither apparent beforehand nor focused and structured to provide further clarity. Additionally, content is often delivered passively resulting in a lack of social exchange and interaction. Thus, these learning programs are overall not engaging or encouraging enough; this results in low completion rates of only 13% (source). So there is a distinct need for a new EdTech era where verticalized learning platforms focus less on quantity and more on content quality and engaging formats. And that’s where Junto comes into play:
Junto introduces a novel format of workforce education called cohort-based learning that combines personal interaction and accountability of offline trainings with the scalability and accessibility of horizontal online platforms.
Cohort-based learning programs are live, interactive online courses, in which a group of students advances through learning material together. They are built with hands-on, feedback-based learning at the core and have a fixed start and end date. This novel approach to corporate learning has various advantages. It encourages lasting learning, as students have to put in more effort than in passive content consumption. It also enables better ideation and sharing of experiences through building micro-communities that support participants beyond the program. Furthermore, it increases accountability due to the live format and forced scarcity of the content with fixed start and end dates.
Junto’s Networked, Marketplace Approach
Junto productizes this approach in their JuntoOS — connecting talents, leading operators and employers (see figure 1). Talents get access to eight-week long courses taught by leading operators (e.g., from companies such as Google, McKinsey, or Delivery Hero), additional live learning sessions such as meetups or fireside chats with leading experts, an asynchronous content library, and a high-profile professional peer network. Leading operators, on the other hand, can build their personal brand and generate additional revenues. Employers benefit as they can integrate Junto into their existing learning and development platforms giving them measurable results of their employees’ development. A clear WIN-WIN-WIN situation!
Even though the company only started operating at the beginning of 2022, the team was already able to show the significant potential of the model and their strong execution power: they achieved completion rates of over 95% in their first cohorts, attracted high-quality operators from companies such as Google, N26 or CoachHub, and signed the big names of the German start-up ecosystem as their first customers.
Backing Market Leaders
Our hypothesis is that the market leader will be the player who succeeds in building the most relevant network of operators and participants. The best operators will attract the most participants, hence the supply side will be the flywheel driving marketplace liquidity.
We believe that the Junto team is in the right position to pull forward in this race. Co-founders Marius and Johannes, supported by chairman Feliks, demonstrated their strong ability to execute and the scalability of their model leveraging operator-created content in previous months. Further, they showed that they are able to attract the right people to support them on their journey. High-profile angels such as Ignaz Forstmeier (Personio), Christian Reber (Pitch), or Felix Ohswald (GoStudent) believed in the team from the beginning; many more are following on in this round. We are convinced that this combination of execution power and network will enable the team to strengthen their position as a first mover in the European market.
At Earlybird, we are excited to announce that we are leading Junto’s 5mn EUR seed round alongside Emerge Education as well as Picus Capital, and can’t wait to support the team in making corporate learning more impactful and fun.
Team Junto, welcome to the #EBVCgang. Let’s build a global category leader for cohort-based B2B education!
👍🏽 Good news for tech startup jobseekers: Junto now has multiple roles open — especially for operators, CPO, or Sales Manager. Check that out here!
Article by Maresa Buttlar & Marieke Gehres of Earlybird Digital West
If you are building something exciting in the EdTech or HR Tech space, please reach out to Maresa and Marieke from our Earlybird Digital West team.
