Edtech start-ups raised R$21 Billion Globally
Young companies, with proposals for hybrid or distance education, inject technology and new ways of teaching in basic and university education. The market grows annually and already receives more than $7 billion (R$21.9 billion) in investment worldwide.
According to a survey by Metaari, a US consultancy specializing in educational technology, companies in this area received 12% more investments in 2016 than in 2015.
Stoodi, in São Paulo, was founded in 2013 as a platform for video lessons and exercises.The study plans, customized according to the student’s agenda and goals, are focused on summer school, vestibular (admission test) and Enem test.
Edenilson Sabino, 18, lived in his hometown, Itatira (CE), 186 kilometers from Fortaleza, at the time he was preparing for the entrance exam in 2016. The city, however, does not have any pre-college courses and his family could not afford sending him to study in another municipality.
It was then that Sabino found Stoodi in an internet research and began to study using the platform.
“The basic education in my city was precarious, without teachers with the proper training. It was while studying online that I felt like a real student,” he says, who is now in the first semester of the Electrical Engineering course at UFC Of Ceará).
According to Daniel Liebert, founder of Stoodi, the site should reach the month of August with 800 thousand members registered.
In order to have full access to the classes, it is necessary to pay (R$49,90 is the monthly price of the college preparatory course), but non-paying enrollees have access to some of the content.
In 2013, Felipe Amaral de Mattos, innovation manager at Kroton Educacional, owner of universities like Anhanguera and Unopar, participated in the foundation of Studiare, an adaptive teaching platform.
In the early years, the company developed products in partnership with educational institutions until, in 2015, it was purchased by Kroton.
Today, it is used by the group’s university courses for leveling high school knowledge and, after graduation, the stimulation of skills forgotten through testing.
“But this is a complex market. In order to work, the product must have a clear proposal and the company must have good teachers and relevant content,” says Mattos.
In the Visconde College of Porto Seguro, in the western zone of São Paulo, elementary and middle school students interact with teachers through Moodle, a virtual environment of free learning.
According to Joice Lopes Leite, school’s educational technology coordinator, even part of the summer school is done online, reducing time and paper expenditure.
“Virtual platforms allow more autonomous learning, but the school’s role of checking content and making sense of knowledge is still important,” says Leite.
PREPARATION
Focused on elementary school teachers who want to learn how to deal with educational technologies, EvoBooks, a start-up incubated at Cietec, has launched the Inspira Program.
According to Gabriela Pimenta, project manager for EvoBooks, more than 2,000 teachers have already taken the course (distance learning) that teaches, for example, how to include educational applications in class.One of the first customers to acquire the product was the government of the State of Amazonas, to train public school teachers.
In order to have access to the contents, available for all compulsory subjects in basic education, the teacher pays monthly fees starting at R$19.90.
Source: Correio do Estado
Billy D. Aldea-Martinez, heads up Latin America and Brazil for Piano, the world’s leader SaaS Platform that allows media companies to launch Direct Monetization models, such as metering and paywall solutions for digital content and user data analysis.
Billy is also a Digital Monetization Strategy consultant and exclusively works with Latin America’s largest media groups, such as Editora Abril (Brazil), Grupo Globo (Brazil) as well as Grupo Copesa (Chile).
He also serves as Board Advisor & Angel Investor for adtech & martech startups such as Start-up Chile, Start-up Peru, Parallel18 (PR) Admetricks and Starter Daily.
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