Edtech 20:20 vision: the top 40 emerging companies for higher education in 2023
Higher education edtech is a busy space, and it can be hard to keep up with innovation. At Emerge Education, we want to help you see clearly.
Members of our Higher Education Edtech Leadership Board, chaired by Mary Curnock Cook and in partnership with Jisc, tell us that keeping up to date with the best emerging edtech companies in HE is difficult, confusing and overwhelming. So every year, we publish a list of top edtech companies — crowdsourced from our HE board and further afield — to help university senior leaders see what is out there.
By highlighting great practice, we hope to encourage innovation.
We launched this year’s Edtech 20:20 vision list with an open session on LinkedIn chaired by Mary Curnock Cook, who interviewed Chris Cobb (chief executive, Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music), Ian Dunn (pro vice-chancellor, Coventry University) and Nick Mount (academic director, the University of Nottingham Online) for their expert insights. Mary, Chris, Ian and Nick are all part of our Venture Partner community with a special interest in higher education. We’ll be interspersing the list below with some of their comments. You can watch the full session on LinkedIn.
The big players
Before we dig into our list of emerging companies, let’s look at the gold standard in HE edtech.
These are the established players — you’ll probably recognise most, if not all, of these names. Every company here has raised $100s of millions and improved access to opportunities for millions of learners around the world. We believe that the emerging companies we will now highlight have the potential to be just as transformational.
The HE edtech 20:20 list
Quick overview:
- 35% of these companies are from Europe, but all are selling globally
- They span from 2013–2022, with an average age of 6 years
- Funds raised per company vary from just starting out to $100m, with a total combined fundraising of almost $1bn
- Between them, they have created more than 10,000 jobs
- In total, we analysed more than 175 companies to build this list
- 11 of these companies are new entrants and did not feature on the 2021–22 list
Diversity:
- 1 in 10 founders are women
- 30% of founders are people of colour
- This compares to tech industry averages of 1–2%
Methodology:
The list is based on public and private data. Crunchbase and Pitchbook are primary data sources where we capture company valuation, funding raised, HQ location and employee data. We leverage LinkedIn as a secondary source for employee data. Lastly, as an edtech-specialist venture firm, Emerge Education captures our own proprietary data that we use to complete our analysis. The list is crowdsourced and voted on by our HE edtech leadership board. Inclusion criteria include:
- Breadth and quality of courses/content /pedagogy
- Quality of features and capabilities
- Industry visibility, innovation and impact
- Strength of clients and geographic reach
- Company size and growth potential
To help you make comparisons, we have divided the list into three sections:
Top 10 “Superstars”
- These companies have been around the longest, on average 8 years
- They have raised more than $50m and are established players
Top 20 “Rising Stars”
- These companies are emerging and starting to make a significant impact
- They have raised between $15m and $50m
Top 10 “ones to watch”
- These companies are new players
- Some were only founded in the last 12 months
- The average age is 2 years
- We think they have the potential to be game changers
Every year, you will be able to see the progress that companies make across these sections — as well as easily picking out exciting new entrants.
But of course, categorisation is difficult! There are inevitably some overlaps and some gaps. This list is by no means perfect, and it’s not comprehensive — it’s simply a snapshot. We’ll run this list each year, so we are continuously tracking all the companies in our full dataset, and every 12 months, this process will update — you will be able to see companies graduate from one list to the next as they grow in size and impact, watch new players enter the fray and catch the emergence of whole new edtech categories as innovation takes HE in new directions. Share your thoughts, ideas and comments to tell us about companies we may have missed or should consider next time.
The HE edtech 20:20 list by category
Student experience: engagement & personalised learning
Briefly: This bundles two categories that go hand-in-hand around the concept of student engagement, where digital is enabling end-to-end coverage of the student journey, moving from generic and piecemeal systems to more student-centric systems. These categories have the most players, but it is also where there is the greatest need for innovation. The next frontier will be personalisation — creating engaging and impactful student experiences tailored to their individual needs at scale.
HE leader insights:
- “We had that frenetic pace in 2020–21, and it feels as though we’re taking stock. I want to call for us to push again. We’ve learned how much we depended on our campus to connect and engage our students; there wasn’t a wholesale plan for student engagement in the physical space, never mind in the virtual space. We’ve also discovered that our underlying technology, not just around student experience but all of our administrative systems, just isn’t up to standard. We’ve discovered a raft of tools that support student engagement and they do add value, but we still have to put the pieces of the jigsaw together. We have to understand how to connect those tools, because we now know that we have less attendance on our campus than before the pandemic; we have students who are more demanding that their time can’t be wasted. We need to figure out how to invest heavily in our underpinning technology estate, and then work with edtech partners to connect these experiences so they become much more holistic.” — Ian Dunn.
Highlights:
- Engageli — “digital learning platform designed from scratch to provide a superior learning experience for students and instructors” — USA, 2020, founders: Dan Avida, Gideon Avida, Jamie Nacht Farrell, Daphne Koller, Joe Peter, Serge Plotkin. “Engageli was created by a group of people who looked at the challenges universities faced during the pandemic of creating a digital virtual classroom — many used MS Teams and Zoom, it kind of worked okay but it wasn’t great because there were so many affordances of that physical being-together in a space that just couldn’t be replicated. They offer a special educational approach that isn’t about business solutions. Engageli designed that from the bottom up with an understanding of what makes a great educational experience in the virtual environment.” — Nick Mount.
- BibliU — “eTextbook platform providing students and institutions with access to all their content on any device, at any time” — UK, 2014, founders: Daniel Engelke, Tao Manatras, Dave Sherwood. “BibliU has been around for quite a long time, but it’s not the base product; it’s the ability to understand your learners and the amount of time they’re spending on particular source materials/content, and therefore testing whether they understand concepts. That needs to be embedded into the learning management data that we have.” — Ian Dunn.
- Vygo — “helps universities unify and deliver their student support ecosystems ” — Australia, 2017, founders: Joel Di Trapani, Ben Hallett, Steven Hastie. “A platform where we can do two things: 1. Bring together people who have a similarity/connection, and that will help us to challenge awarding gaps; 2. Bring together people who’ve studied something prior to someone else and mentor them through that. So we create communities of students.” — Ian Dunn.
- Padlet — “enables users to create an online bulletin board to display information on any topic” — USA, 2012, founders: Nitesh Goel, Pranav Piyush. “For many, Padlet will be something we’re very familiar with and have been using for some time, but what is changing and why that’s rising is because there’s a recognition now that a university’s delivery mode is going to be increasingly blended and as part of that the ability to share, to collaborate, to interact with other learners very quickly and very easily and to embed things into other media is going to be a really important driver of student experience.” — Nick Mount.
- StudyStream — “video platform and online community that allows students to study with others from around the world 24/7 in real time” — London, 2020, founders: Sarujan Ranjan, Erfan Soliman, Ti Xu. “Students want the sense of belonging that they get from studying in a large zoom community alongside other silent strangers who are doing revision or study or reading, or whatever! I think it’s absolutely fascinating.” — Mary Curnock Cook.
Assessment
Briefly: The rise of generative AI makes this probably the hottest topic in HE right now. How can universities respond to these challenges? Doubling down on proctoring and plagiarism detection won’t work. We believe that the future of assessment is innovative, authentic and skills-based rather than content-focused.
HE leader insights:
- “During the pandemic, universities were thrust into digital assessment. We saw huge opportunities but concerns over proctoring were dominating debates. Then ChatGPT came along and the whole thing was thrown up in the air again. Academic misconduct questions rose to the surface again and drowned out all the other advantages and opportunities from AI. This will be real in the workplace students enter; we are going to have to get used to teaching with AI and adopting it as normal practice. We could think about AI in the context of how it’s going to support universities and might be used to give formative feedback, in quality assurance (e.g. second and third marking of exams), in quality teaching materials. AI is a huge opportunity. The key thing is we’ve got to engage with students, have them go on the journey with us as regards the changes that are going to be needed, the conduct that’s going to be needed.” — Chris Cobb.
- “We need different ways of assessing. You could set a question that says, ‘ask an AI bot for the answer and then critique the answer’. You critique the AI output and see whether you can identify where the bias is, or whether it’s missing information or being superficial in certain areas. Is it the assessment that’s most important, or is it the process by which the individual has gone about the assessment? If you’ve got a breadcrumb trail of them developing an essay and reasoning behind that, it gives you a sense of authenticity and their understanding.” — Chris Cobb.
- “Generally in this space, digital credential providers are beginning to move to the forefront. The thing to look out for is not simply ‘are they generating a useful credential?’, but ‘are they connecting the credential holder to what they can do with their credential?’ So is that credential being linked to the competencies that they’ve been able to demonstrate through learning, which then feeds into jobs bulletins boards, for example: ‘you’ve just gained this credential, you live here, people are looking for staff with these competencies — do you want to apply for that new job so you can use that skillset that you’ve developed?’ It’s the value added in the digital badging and digital certification that I think will be the factor that determines those which are really successful in this field and those which struggle a little bit.” — Nick Mount.
Highlights:
- Credly — “Achievements, verified and shared” — USA, 2012, founders: Jonathan Finkelstein. “Credly was recently acquired by Pearson. It’s interesting when a global powerhouse like Pearson, which is also a major awarding body, is investing in the idea of credentialised learning that might come from providers that aren’t traditional awarding bodies or universities. That’s a major shift. If people are starting to get as much or even more value from a credential from Amazon or Salesforce or whoever as they might get from the signalling power of a university degree on their CV, that’s a major change. And of course with the lifelong loan entitlement coming in in the UK, where there’s going to be more short courses and modular learning delivered (we hope), then it’ll be very interesting to see what organisations like Credly have to offer.” — Mary Curnock Cook.
- Cadmus — “online assessment platform” — Australia, 2015, founders: Herk Kailis. “Cadmus is not proctoring, but looks at authenticity using the keyboard signature of an individual, like a digital fingerprint. It also helps you structure your approach and tracks that breadcrumb trail which is a hugely important aspect with AI and looking at whether it is someone’s work: you can see how the student has developed the essay from start to finish. The founder started as an expert on academic integrity and pivoted to this platform, so that’s baked in.” — Chris Cobb.
Employment
Briefly: Universities are increasingly exposed to criticism around a perceived failure to produce job-ready talent. There are also more and more workers needing upskilling and reskilling throughout their careers. We are seeing more employment-focused offerings that can be embedded in courses or put on top of existing university provision.
HE leader insights:
- “Universities are going to have to get better at articulating why the knowledge creation and knowledge exchange that happens at university in whatever topic is important in and of itself, but then also get more fluent about how they’re embedding transferable skills and what those transferable skills are so that they have a clear narrative. That’s why most students are going to university. Yes they want to study what they love, but they also want to make sure they’re getting a good job at the end of it.” — Mary Curnock Cook.
- “Using AI in pedagogy is a daunting prospect for academic staff. How do they focus on how AI will change their subject and affect their industry going forward, and how are they adapting their teaching accordingly to prepare their students for that world? We need to be thinking about that in subject ways, rather than universal organisational ways.” — Chris Cobb.
Highlights:
- FourthRev — “Bridging the skills gap by connecting leading companies and universities to deliver up-to-date, industry-relevant programs” — UK, 2019, founders: Jack Hylands, Omar de Silva. “I think it’s a bit of a pity if our graduates feel that once they’ve completed their degree they have to go off to do another course or a bootcamp in order to apply to the jobs they want. FourthRev are bringing vendor certifications into the curriculum, so they become part of what you do and learn while at university, as part of your course.” — Mary Curnock Cook.
New markets
Briefly: This category encompasses three tiers. First, businesses supporting universities to more effectively attract core demographics. Second, solutions that are helping universities to attract new groups of students while expanding their brand. Third, creating new university brands to serve new audiences. Outside of core students, one of the biggest opportunities is building programmes that tailor to international students. There are 200 million students in education right now and we can expect another 200 million to enter, primarily from developing markets. Campuses cannot be built fast enough and so the solution is quality online offerings, especially for new entrants and lifelong learners.
HE leader insights:
- “This is an area we’re going to see lots of new entrants, because of the sheer demographic change going on in developing markets and people coming in to higher education over the coming years. What will be interesting is whether it’ll be established universities going online, like Southern New Hampshire University, to provide a broader reach for education, or is it going to be providers starting locally and providing hybrid services? This is a space of distinct innovation coming up in the next 5 years.” — Nic Newman.
Highlights:
- Unibuddy — “helping universities attract, engage and convert student prospects through peer interactions” — UK, 2015, founders: Maxence Dussart, Diego Fanara, Kimeshan Naidoo. “Unibuddy hit on the blindingly simple idea that potential students might want to speak to or message existing students to find out more about whether they’ve chosen the right course and the right university. They’re at pretty much universal adoption in the UK.” — Mary Curnock Cook..
- Enroly — “international student recruitment, conversion and compliance automation software” — UK, 2017, founders: Jeffrey Williams. “There’s an explosion of international recruitment in UK universities, which, as we all know, is providing a really important revenue stream, and international recruitment offices need all the help they can get to make the workflow efficient but also to meet visa and financial background requirements. My international team would not have coped with the volume of applications without some element of automation and if we can take that partnership even further, that’s really exciting.” — Ian Dunn.
- Cintana — “helps universities reach more students with the education they need and deserve” — USA, 2019, founders: Douglas Becker. “When you look under the bonnet and discover who’s behind it, Arizona State University and Doug Becker who created Laureate, it’s got some pretty aristocratic back-pedigree there. They’re doing some interesting things developing new models of universities and private sector collaboration to move into spaces that we currently haven’t been.” — Ian Dunn.
- Nexford University — “next generation online university providing students with access to quality, affordable, dynamic education” — USA, 2018, founders: Fadl Al Tarzi. “So exciting — the idea of creating ultra-low-cost degree courses delivered throughout the African continent is one of the most socially democratic things that we can all get involved in. It’s $3–4,000 for a full undergraduate qualification. That’s a very different thing altogether to what we’re used to.” — Ian Dunn.
Near misses on this year’s list
No single list can ever capture the full scope of innovation in this space — there will always have to be some exciting companies who just miss out. Here are a few that caught our attention but didn’t quite make the cut this year, based on our methodology and selection criteria:
- WooClap — “web-based solution to boost interactivity with your live audience during a lecture or class” — Belgium, 2014
- Fika — “institutionally customisable mental health platform delivering programmes that improve mental health literacy” — UK, 2018
- Blackbullion — “financial education company that puts students in control of their financial life” — UK, 2014
- VerifyEd — “credentialing solution powered by blockchain” — UK, 2019
- Accredible — provides a digital badge and certification platform — USA, 2013
- Packback — “AI-powered Q&A learning platform to quantify and improve critical thinking skills” — USA, 2013
Don’t forget, you can catch up on the whole discussion on LinkedIn, and please let us know if you think we’ve missed any great companies — we will add all suggestions to our full dataset and consider ahead of next year’s update!
Emerge Education welcomes inquiries from new investors and startup founders. For more information, visit emerge.education or email hello@emerge.education.
Thank you for reading… I would hugely appreciate some claps 👏 and shares 🙌 so that others can find it!
Nic
Nic Newman
