Introduction

Society faces unprecedented challenges. With the growing worldwide ICT usage and development, new requirements for education need to be considered. It can be seen as the events of 2020 made the classic form of education impossible in a very short time for up to about 1.5 billion students at the peak (Unesco, 2020). The Covid-19 pandemic has due to its suddenness, initiated education disruption drawing attention to companies and startups developing relevant products (Mascarenhas, 2020b).

Both market and the academic world share the pursuit of prediction of the future. This thesis goal is to present the most important global trends in EdTech and grasp the topic in the most concise way while keeping a reasonable degree of rigour. We hold a narrow perspective on what matters in EdTech and aim to identify trends within the domain by analysing EdTech companies that received the biggest funding sum in non IPO raisings. The analysis is done by identification of HolonIQ's (2021b) clusters from the taxonomy for the future of education within the selected companies. The clusters identification was done during an auxiliary analysis of each company in terms of the problems they claim to be solving, their target groups, solutions, and remarks. Results are presented as EdTech clusters frequency analysis. Results are discussed and compared with trends identified by industry experts.

What is EdTech

Educational technology (commonly abbreviated as EdTech) is an established term both in the general audience and within the education profession. However, at the same time, the term is very vague as defining EdTech is notoriously difficult. "Various professional and scholarly communities have provided a specific definition of the term" (Huang et al., 2019, p. 8). However, the definition is not straightforward and there is no clear definition of the term ('Reflections on the 2008 AECT Definitions of the Field', 2008). Instead, similarly to other areas, "definition exists at various levels of understanding but no one definition can be the definition" (Ely, Donald P, 1963, chapter 3). The definitions vary depending on the views we take. Moreover, as the technological and educational practice evolves, the community reflects shortcomings of existing definitions and come up with new ones ('Reflections on the 2008 AECT Definitions of the Field', 2008).

EdTech may be possibly defined as a domain that encompasses emerging technologies; the impact of technologies on learning and education; and related issues, challenges and promises of using technology in educational settings, and a scholarly discipline or a professional field (Czerniewicz, 2008; Sims & Stone, 2011).

Drawing boundaries between mentioned conceptions of EdTech isn't easy, since they are all interconnected and eventually intertwine. It appears to us that the most common element of all EdTech conceptions is the shared purpose of examining and solving problems in education. All the conceptions then lay on the assumption that such a particular effort is meaningful. Thus the effort is made while keeping in mind it should lead to better results than if solving educational problems without the effort, knowledge and deep understanding of the domain.

EdTech products

EdTech is usually "understood as the utilisation of apps and tech devices for the purpose of teaching and learning. EdTech can happen inside or outside of classrooms, at any time and in any place. Most modern EdTech typically involves the use of a wireless internet connection and an electronic device such as a smartphone, tablet, laptop or desktop computer" (European Commission. Joint Research Centre., 2021).

For the purpose of this thesis, we primarily view EdTech as products, which share a common purpose of solving problems related to education, teaching and learning. "Technology is one of the keywords of our world, yet it is also one of the most confused" (Agar, 2020). Perhaps the most common usage of the term denotes to artifacts or perhaps hardware. The term is being used also to represent processes, actions, methods and systems and in a symbolical meaning as an attribute with the notion of evaluation (Kline, 1985). Thus, the term 'EdTech products' encompass hard technology as well as soft technologies. Since EdTech products are preferably a product of examined pursue, we will later introduce EdTech as a scholarly discipline and professional practice.

EdTech topics overview timeline

According to Weller, (2018), an evident theme in the field is that there appear to be no shared concepts or history. He attributes it to the fact that many people from various backgrounds and disciplines enter the field and circumstances in the field are changing. The following timeline builds heavily on Bozkurt's (2020) study on research patterns of the field and Weller's, (2018, 2020) reflection on the history of the field, giving us an instant, simplifying and opinionated overview of EdTech development reaching the current state of the art.

1993 Multimedia learning and instructional design;

1994–1999 Bulletin board systems, the web, computer-mediated communication, constructivism, wikis, e-learning;

2000–2004 Convergence of EdTech, distance education and online learning environments; EdTech integration in traditional learning settings;

Learning objects, E-learning standards, The Learning Management System, Blogs, Open Educational Resources.

2005–2009 Revising curriculum for EdTech; EdTech in higher education, distance education;

Video, Web 2.0, Virtual worlds, E-portfolios, Social media.

2010–2014 Online learning and higher education; Integration of ICT and full potential of EdTech;

Connectivism, Personal learning environments, Massive Open Online Courses, Open Textbooks, Learning Analytics.

2015–2019 Data-driven EdTech, big data, and learning analytics.

Digital Badges, AI, Blockchain

Understanding EdTech

Our views and assumptions on education and technology, or perhaps EdTech, shape our understanding of EdTech and its potential or pitfalls. "It was observed that innovation is a magical word and there is a tendency to refer to innovative, exciting technologies as the next big thing that will save education" (Bozkurt, 2020). We hold the opinion that such a perception is indeed misleading. "The history of new and emerging educational technologies suggests that promises of significant and sustained improvements on a large scale that will dramatically transform learning are unlikely to occur as promised" (Spector, 2016, p. 213). However, noting that nothing has changed in education over the last years, appears too to be misleading since the changes coming with are radically new in different ways and nuances which are perhaps harder to perceive, eg. see Downes (2020). A following brief examination of EdTech as a scholarly discipline and a professional field through the lens of AECT provides us with clues to understand EdTech in a more detailed way.

EdTech as study and ethical practice

According to Richey (2013, pp. 102–104), the origin of educational technology can be tracked down into the 1920s concept of visual education, followed by the 1940s audio-visual education. The development of the concept of EdTech starting from the visual education is to a large extent captured in the work of The Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT), which began as "US-based Department of Visual Instruction in 1923, and became 50 years later, in 1973, an international organization of educational technologists". The AECT "has maintained definitions and terminology committee through the decades that reflects the conceptual issues around educational technology". Even though the scholarly community hardly agrees on a concrete definition of EdTech, the definitions provide us with a guidance and direction (Hlynka & Jacobsen, 2010).

According to the most recent, 2008 AECT definition, "educational technology is the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using and managing appropriate technological processes and resources" (Januszewski & Molenda, 2013, p. 1; 'Reflections on the 2008 AECT Definitions of the Field', 2008).

By referring to EdTech as a study and ethical practice, the latest definition emphasizes the continual, iterative knowledge construction through research and reflective practice beyond traditional research methods and sets the field ethical standards for practice. Historically, the question of how to design, develop, use, and manage new technologies, has been centre of the interest. However more recently "the growth and change in major theoretical positions in learning theory, information management, and other allied fields", has affected the fields concerns. The implications of the paradigm shift in learning theories may be seen in the recognition of learner ownership and responsibility leading to 1) supporting learning via facilitation rather than controlling, and 2) providing more immersive and authentic learning environments. The key role of technology then "is not so much to present information and provide drill and practice (to control learning) but to provide the problem space and the tools to explore it (to support learning)" (Januszewski & Molenda, 2013, pp. 1–2).

The emphasis on the ethical side in the definition admits the possible problems in practice; that is, it must be considered that educational technology outputs and practices do not always make things better by their very nature. "Educational technology entails a number of professional, ethical, and moral values" although it is not stated in the short excerpt version of the definition (Januszewski & Molenda, 2013, p. 241).

For example, "one of the implicit goals of educational technology is to improve access to learning through ICT" (Januszewski & Molenda, 2013, p. 255). The term performance improvement in the definition "entails a claim of effectiveness: that the processes lead predictably to quality products, and that the products lead predictably to effective learning". "Effectiveness implies efficiency, that is, that results are accomplished with the least wasted time, effort, and expense". The values of effectiveness and efficiency apply to all elements of the definition, "especially to improving the performance of individual learners, of teachers and designers, and the organization as a whole" (Januszewski & Molenda, 2013, pp. 6–7, 255). Note that even values of efficiency and effectiveness depend based on the learning theories and value-related goals." (Januszewski & Molenda, 2013, p. 255).

EdTech drivers

Ongoing digitalisation and digital transformation

Although the term digitalization has a variety of meanings. The technical interpretation of the term refers to the conversion of information from analog to digital storage (Hess, 2019; Hess et al., 2016). The term digitalization is often used for the introduction of digital technologies in companies.. Since digitalization leads to change of business conditions, it is usually the main driver of digital transformation (Pousttchi, 2020).

There is no doubt that digitalization leads to bigger effectivity in many areas, but it is increasingly necessary not to focus merely on the advances in terms of technological progress (Mergel et al., 2019; Vial, 2019). "Technology is one part of the complex system to be solved for organizations to remain competitive in a digital world" (Vial, 2019). The question of "how to embrace it and use it as a competitive advantage" is considered one of the biggest challenges companies currently face (Hess et al., 2016).

"There is no commonly accepted definition of digital transformation" (Schallmo et al., 2017). A conceivable description of digital transformation may be "significant active changes in everyday life, the economy and society through the use of digital technologies and techniques and their effects" (Pousttchi, 2020). Based on existing definitions, Vial, (2019) developed a more general conceptual definition of digital transformation as "a process that aims to improve an entity by triggering significant changes to its properties through combinations of information, computing, communication, and connectivity technologies". Perhaps the most discussed characteristic of digital transformation and industrial revolution 4.0. is the exponential growth of technology. The growth itself is shown in various metrics, while the most popular is an observation of the growing number of transistors on microchips described by Moore's law.

As Vial's (2019) conceptual definition refers DT to any entity, the process of DT applies to organizations and companies as well as individuals. In companies, DT implies the need to embrace complexity with a new mindset. Setting the DT is "reflected in the change of entire business models brought about by digital technologies" (Hess et al., 2016).

According to Cairneagle Associates & IBIS Capital (2020), "the science of learning is moving EdTech beyond simple digitalisation towards digital transformation". The need to adapt to the technology-driven world is by no means relevant to learning and education too. In education, the digital transformation manifests in changes that naturally differ based on context and sphere. In the operation of whole educational organizations, technology does not only power standard processes thus make them more efficient eg. in term of speed. However, brings new perspectives on running an organization and navigating change and opens opportunity for completely new processes. The teaching and learning practices are not affected only in terms of classroom & learning technology usage growth. As the unprecedented reality sets new standards for desired educational outcomes of students, the whole curriculum changes, opening new requirements for teaching and facilitation too.

Covid-19 recovery

The case of the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic event is referred to as an example of disruption as many people and organisations including education organisations, adopted to using technology in a short period since they had no other option. Note the classic form of education was impossible for up to about 1.5 billion students at the peak (Unesco, 2020). Sudden adoption and acceleration, however, did not necessarily bring about a fundamental transformation of existing practices in many cases. It is important to note the indirectly mentioned fact from the work of Pousttchi, (2020), that increase in digital technology usage or digitalisation alone, does not imply the presence of digital transformation in its full range and potential.

In general, the Covid-19 has accelerated ongoing emerging trends in education, of which some are not expected to revert and rather are expected to consolidate. We list the following trends regard to EdTech by drawing on the Educause Horizon 2021 report and the Global EdTech Report 2020.

Remote work and learning:remote modes of education are expected to stay to some degree. The faculty and staff need to discover best practices to adapt to student's needs, while students as well need to develop literacies and skills for remote education (EDUCAUSE, 2021).

Increased use of learning technologies: "institutions and instructors previously resistant or indifferent to tools such as videoconferencing, team-based platforms, and virtual classrooms have come to rely on those tools" (EDUCAUSE, 2021). The trend is expected to continue with other innovative technologies and "digital tools that create better engagement and efficacy" (Cairneagle Associates & IBIS Capital, 2020).

Rise of hybrid learning models:faculty and student accustoming to new ways of engaging through the learning experience will likely leave mark on higher education and transform traditional teaching and learning approaches. (Cairneagle Associates & IBIS Capital, 2020; EDUCAUSE, 2021)

Mental health issues:"recent disruptions and changes to our social, political, and educational landscapes and have presented institutions with additional challenges in ensuring the safety and well-being of not only students but also faculty and staff" (EDUCAUSE, 2021).

Demand for new skills: ongoing technological progress and accelerated adoption, as well as rapid skills, demand change pose new requirements on skills and literacies. Government funding is expected to be limited, leading to restrictions in "institutional demand to address digital resources and upskilling" (Cairneagle Associates & IBIS Capital, 2020).

Limited government funding: the economic landscape influenced by the recession is expected to focus on ROI and absolute cost. Likewise, "supply-side stress from COVID-19 and subsequent recession will drive increased consolidation based around established players and those with deep-pocketed shareholders" (Cairneagle Associates & IBIS Capital, 2020).

Widening the digital divide: "the gap will only widen between those with every digital advantage and those who struggle to gain access to even the basic devices and network necessities" (EDUCAUSE, 2021).

Network effects and exponential growth: for companies and institutions, the valuation will create a divide between those who show traction and scalability and those who struggle to adapt and cope with the new environment. At the same tim "geographical variances in infrastructure will impact regional acceleration capability". Asian and the United States markets are expected to continue lead due to their early EdTech investments position (Cairneagle Associates & IBIS Capital, 2020).

Key technologies and practices

The latest EDUCAUSE Horizon Report maps "the landscape of emerging technologies that have the potential to have a significant influence on teaching, learning and creative inquiry" (Spector, 2016). Further drawing on the latest Horizon Report and Global EdTech Report 2020, we list the following key technologies and practices, while trying to briefly describe them to outline their potential for all levels of education.

Artificial intelligence: AI is currently used throughout education "in domains such as learning management systems, proctoring, grading/assessment, student information systems, office productivity, library services, admissions, disability support, and mobile apps" (EDUCAUSE, 2021). AI and especially its deep learning subfield is expected to improve the educational efficacy of both humans and machines. Such improvements make an opportunity to rethink the curriculums (Cairneagle Associates & IBIS Capital, 2020).

Blended and Hybrid Course Models:the already mentioned trend of growth in hybrid learning models motivated by greater flexibility due to pandemic is expected to stay. Faculties providing a diverse sets of hybrid course models to meet the students may invite students to participate in curriculum and course design. Course models also generate management overhead and may depend on EdTech solutions (EDUCAUSE, 2021). Private education is also expected to "see a surge in new online or hybrid educational solutions" (Cairneagle Associates & IBIS Capital, 2020).

Learning Analytics: The growing amount of data related to teaching and learning often sourced "in the learning management system, student information system, and cocurricular data sources" open new possibilities regard to data analysis. "One goal is to make better, evidence-informed decisions about how best to serve an increasingly diverse population of learners in higher education settings". Data are often heavily dependend on departments and courses making it harder to mine the important signals effectively. Institutions are expected to evolve systems to manage and utilize the data (EDUCAUSE, 2021).

Microcredentialing: A variety of microcredentialing options include short courses and badges, bootcamps, professional certificates and licenses, non-university-issued nondegree certificates, university-issued nondegree certificates, and degree programs or accredited programs (HolonIQ, 2021c). In contrast to traditional degrees and certificates, microcredentials are offered in shorter or more flexible timespans and tend to be more narrowly (EDUCAUSE, 2021).

Open Educational Resources: free resources accessible digitally from anywhere on any device grow in importance. The OER's may include increasingly complex and innovative types of resources. "Moving well beyond textbooks, many projects and resources submitted to this year's report now include cutting-edge, openly accessible content such as Virtual Immersive Teaching and Learning" (Ibid).

Quality Online Learning: Strategies "for how to effectively teach online and how to design quality courses" and address pain points of teaching and facilitation in a new environment. Online education often promotes stress among the faculty, staff and students as it brings significant overhead in finding new strategies to function effectively. "Colleges and universities brought to bear a variety of strategies, including templates, self-directed courses, consultation, resource hubs, and more" (Ibid).

Innovation ecosystems and startups funding

Productivity growth is driven by innovation and human capital leading to increased output and consumption per capita and enhanced economic well-being. (Frenkel & Maital, 2014, p. 3). "Increasingly, researchers and policymakers alike recognize that innovations are generated by complex and dynamic national ecosystems that include government, industry, universities and schools" (Ibid, abstract). Thus the innovation ecosystems differ by country and are heavily dependent on culture, scientific and technological infrastructure, the structure of the economy, markets and regulations (Ibid, p. 122).

Innovative businesses and startups are mainly part of the market dimension of the innovation ecosystems seeking to satisfy unmet needs and wants in a profitable and sustainable way. Given the national innovation policy, businesses are more or less part of national innovation strategy complementing the innovation strategy with the bottom-up innovation perspective and drive, although businesses may also fulfil the bottom-up academic alike approach (Ibid, pp. 23, 199–200).

What is a startup?

We use the word businesses, companies and startups interchangeably for the purpose of this thesis. However, to understand the main difference between regular businesses and startups, a distinction can be noted. In his essay, Graham (2012) defines a startup as "a company that is designed to grow rapidly."In general, normal businesses are constrained in coming up with new ideas and protected from competition. Whereas a startup has to make something it can deliver to a large market to grow rapidly, "and ideas of that type are so valuable that all the obvious ones are already taken." Funding startups and emerging companies are known as the venture capital industry. Most startups fail, therefore for early-stage investors, startups pose a high risk, high stake, and eventually high returns opportunity if a startup succeeds.

Startup funding

Companies may receive funding from individuals and private or public institutions typically arranged in funding rounds. Funding rounds are distinguished according to the types of investors, sizes of investment amount and stage of the companies development. There are different types of funding rounds and each investment may be arranged differently making it harder to describe the funding. We will note the most important ones for simplicity.

Investments from individuals are typically arranged in angel funding rounds or Pre-Seed rounds. Investments in an angel round are in general more geographically concentrated and include individual angel investors, friends, and family (Cruchbase, 2020; Moon & Suh, 2021, abstract). A pre-seed round is a small pre-institutional investment often below $150k.

The company receives seed round while working to gain traction, with investments usually between $10k–$2M. Funding from Venture Capital institutions is typically more industry concentrated with "relatively greater geographic diversification" (Moon & Suh, 2021, abstract). Venture capital early-stage investments are known as Series A, Series B ranging from $1M–$30M on average. Investors may strategically overinvest during the early-stage funding rounds to gain long-run difference in firm growth over competitors (Inderst & Mueller, 2009).

Series C rounds with usually $10M+ and later rounds are "for later stage and more established companies". Other late-stage rounds are usually led by private equity firms or hedge funds as these investments are less risky "because the company is more firmly established, and the rounds are typically upwards of $50M" (Cruchbase, 2020).

Companies funding data source

Finding information about companies, and especially private ones is challenging. We decided to leverage the database of innovative companies "maintained by Crunchbase Inc. a company founded in 2007 by Michael Arrington and located in San Francisco, California". The company, now being an independent entity is a former branch of a parent company TechCrunch Inc. "a popular online publication" (Ferrati & Muffatto, 2020).

The database is increasingly used by the venture capital industry. Between researchers and scholars, the database is increasingly popular "as a source of information on start-up activity and financing within and across countries". "More than 90 scientific contributions based on its data have been made available so far". Some of the academic articles are already published in top-tier journals (Using Crunchbase for Economic and Managerial Research, 2017).

The Crunchbase data is mainly centred on a voluntary basis. The scope and coverage of the database are not precisely defined (Ferrati & Muffatto, 2020; Using Crunchbase for Economic and Managerial Research, 2017). Crunchbase data collection consists of 4 activities: 1) "more than 3,700 investment firms submit monthly portfolio updates", 2) active community of executives, entrepreneurs, and investors contributing, 3) Crunchbase AI and ML algorithms validate data and search for anomalies, 4) Crunchbase in-house data science team provide manual data validation and curation of collected data and develops algorithms (Ferrati & Muffatto, 2020; 'The Crunchbase Data Difference', 2017).

The "aggregate statistics on VC funding by country and year tend to be reasonably similar to the same figures produced with an alternative and more established source". Compared to other alternatives, the Crunchbase database "does not require a huge amount of data handling before it can be used for econometric analysis" (Using Crunchbase for Economic and Managerial Research, 2017).

As of May 21, 2019, the Crunchbase corpus contained a total of 760,590 records in the Organisation's dataset and 263,426 records in the Funding rounds dataset. Of the total number of companies approximately 79.9% do not declare any funding round, 5.5% have at least one funding round without funding amount specified and 14.6% have at least one funding round and are declaring the total funding amount (Ferrati & Muffatto, 2020). The platform allows users to filter companies and funding rounds by industries. A brief database query was resolved with ~ 4,377 funding rounds for companies classified in the EdTech industry, while 3,261 of them have defined funding amounts.

Global Learning Landscape taxonomy

The education sector is a complex system of complex systems "combining important social, economic, cultural, intellectual and personal factors and operating at global, national, local and personal levels. However, information and data about education and the innovation that is occurring throughout the system is fragmented and anchored in its local environment, making cooperation across contexts difficult, thus hindering material innovation in the sector".

To bring clarity and navigate in the fast-changing environment of the sector we utilize the 2021 Global Learning Landscape, an open-source, taxonomy for education innovation li-censed under Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0). The taxonomy provides "a common structure and language for identifying, tracking and making sense of the volume and complexity of innovation happening in education globally. The taxonomy provides a well-defined, robust, accessible and community enabled segmentation". A total of 55 clusters are defined by a combination of bottom-up approach analysis by HolonIQ's Global Intelligence Platform, leveraging AI&ML unsupervised algorithms on 60,000+ education organizations worldwide, which augments top-down analysis by HolonIQ's global network of experts (HolonIQ, 2021b). Clusters such as Tutoring, Apps, Admissions Platforms, Finance, and more, are contained in the taxonomy. Each cluster is accompanied by description. The HolonIQ also runs a website presenting overall statistics and example samples of companies in each cluster, however without more detailed presentation of each company (see HolonIQ, 2021a).

Methodology

Representation of companies in the Global learning landscape taxonomy is presented in the form of frequency analysis.

Research sample

A sample of 5 companies was selected for further analysis from a list of companies. The 5 companies with the biggest funding amount sum for each continent excluding South America were selected. The list was build based on funding rounds entries from the funding rounds dataset. The funding rounds dataset was obtained from the Crunchbase database and contained 3229 funding rounds of companies classified by the Crunchbase as EdTech companies.

Obtaining the dataset

The dataset of funding rounds for further analysis was obtained using an export feature from the Crunchbase database which returns a .csv file corresponding to a selected query. Since the database proclaims an export limit of 500 items (rows) per request, we obtained the dataset in chucks to prevent hitting the limit and then constructed the dataset by concatenating the .csv files.

The queries were composed and posted through the Crunchbase Pro web application Funding Rounds query builder. The queries were run consecutively on April 21, 2021. The platform's team or its users may submit new data into the database (including historical data) or edit existing entries. Therefore, no guarantee running the same query at different time will respond with the same results.

The queries requested fields list:

"funded_organization_identifier", "investment_type", "money_raised", "announced_on", "funded_organization_description", "funded_organization_categories", "funded_organization_location", "funded_organization_website", "funded_organization_funding_stage".

The query's predicates:

'Organization Industries' includes any 'EdTech',
field:"funded_organization_categories"
operator: includes,
value: EdTech.

'Money Raised' is set (not blank):
field: money_raised,
operator: blank,
value: false.

'Announced Date' is between provided date tuple:
field: announced_on,
operator: between,
values: date tuple.

The queries were run for following date tuples:

• 1-1-2009,9-30-2014,
• 9-31-2014,9-15-2017,
• 9-16-2017,3-8-2020,
• 3-9-2020,4-21-2021.

As the query shows, we have obtained companies categorized in the EdTech industry. Note, that Crunchbase distinguishes different industries related to education. Companies classified in those may or may not be part of the EdTech cluster

The dataset was a CSV collection of raw, denormalized records of funding rounds corresponding to the query. The entries contained more granular fields of requested query fields corresponding to the API documentation e.g. 'money_raised' field was resolved with 3 fields that are: 'money_raised', 'money_raised_currency_code', 'money_raised_usd'.

Data processing

The data processing was done in a popular data science online notebook platform and the source code has been published online. We used Python3 and popular data science SciPy libraries for data processing, namely:

• NumPy: "the fundamental package for numerical computation. It defines the numerical array and matrix types and basic operations on them",
• Pandas: "providing high-performance, easy-to-use data structures",
• Matplotlib: "a mature and popular plotting package that provides publication-quality 2-D plotting, as well as rudimentary 3-D plotting" (Scientific Computing Tools for Python, n.d.).

The funding rounds records were manipulated using the Pandas library, which includes methods for filtration and procedures. We've applied standard operations on them to parse date entries, numerical values, location and industry classification data.

The funding round entry's funding amount could be initially submitted in any currency. We used a funding amount provided in USD to ensure the compatibility of funding amounts for comparisons. That means a conversion from the original funding amount to USD on the Crunchbase side may happen if necessary. The Crunchbase data API documentation claims the currency conversion is done based on the date of the funding round announcement.

The previously mentioned documentation and a brief Google search query: 'site:crunchbase.com funding amount inflation adjusted' suggested that funding amounts most likely were not adjusted for inflation. A $1 in January 2010 has the same buying power as ~ $1.24 in May 2021. To make the funding amounts comparable, we performed an inflation adjustment correction on each record, for May 2021. A list of individual companies was build based on the funding rounds data. For company comparison based on the total funding amount, a sum of the total funding amount for each company was aggregated using inflation-adjusted funding amount (USD).

Inflation adjustment detail

The monthly consumer prices inflation in the United States were used for inflation adjustment. Inflation reflects the percentage change over time in the cost of acquiring a basket of goods and services for the average consumer. The inflation may be fixed or changed at specified intervals based on the use case (The World Bank Group, 2021). "The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a measure of the average change over time in the prices paid by urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods and services" (Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, 2017). The CPI for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), monthly U.S. city average with the base period 1982-84=100 was selected to compute the inflation rate for the adjustment. Many indexes could be used to determine the inflation rate but they should be approximately similar for this thesis. The CPI-U index is commonly reported by the national media (Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, 2019). According to the Czech Statistical Office, (2021), the monthly CPI is frequently used. The monthly periodicity also appears to be the most granular option available in the U.S. Department of Labor Data Retrieval Tool.

Inflation dataset information:

• Series Id: CUUR0000SA0;
• Not Seasonally Adjusted;
• Area: U.S. city average;
• Item: All items;
• Base Period: 1982-84=100;
• Data extracted on: June 17, 2021.

Companies analysis

We classified each of the selected companies to corresponding Global learning landscape taxonomy during a manual company summary description workflow.

While analysing the companies, we were specifically seeking information on

• the problem companies are trying to tackle,
• its target groups,
• a product response (a provided solution) to the problem including the use of technology,
• remarks and information suggesting the scale of the companies size (allegedly) excluding financial statements,
• other notes (optionally).

To fulfil the analysis and write the company description, we've used

• the company description line obtained from Crunchbase, usually written from the company perspective;
• company's website, especially the about product and news pages;
• optionally found investor websites and other news articles including popular media, obtained usually via Crunchbase news aggregator or other news sources;
• in the case of publicly traded companies, we also worked with their investor relationship reports and public markets regulatory fillings.

Dataset overview statistics

Startups count distribution

North America, more specifically the United States lead the comparison chart in the total number of startups with 679 companies, following Asia formed by China with 120 companies and India with 116 companies. The United Kingdom leads in Europe with 125 companies.

Figure 1: Number of startups by continent

Figure 2: Number of startups by countries

Most startups are categorized in the Seed and Early-stage funding status, indicating they are relatively new unincorporated companies or companies who simply received small funding amounts.

Figure 3: Number of startups by funding status

Funding raisings over time

While the number of raising rounds is globally relatively stable in recent years, in 2020 the sentiment towards EdTech companies is growing rapidly in Chinese companies whose total raising amounts growth rapidly.

Figure 4: Total raisings counts over years

Figure 5: Total raisings sum over years by continent

Figure 6: Total raisings sum over years by country

Selected companies overview

Selected companies analysis

1. Bridge International Academies

Continent: Africa

HolonIQ taxonomy: Alternate, International Schools, Pre-K, School

Problem: Access to Education, Cost of Education

Target: K12

Solution: Scalable school launch & running ecosystem (Academy-in-a-Box)

Note: Analytics

Description: A company providing high-quality education to underprivileged children. They focus on locating their schools in the poorest communities of the poorest countries."Bridge started in Kenya in 2009 with the first academy launched in Mukuru, Nairobi"(Bridge International Academies Response to Bridge vs Reality, 2016). To deliver quality education at a very low price, Bridge develops efficient and "rapidly scalable system, the 'Academy-in-a-Box': a standardized, vertically integrated, data-driven, financially sustainable, technology-enabled system that could rapidly site, construct, staff, and operate uniformly reliable teaching facilities at low cost"(Quadir & Luecke, 2015). "Bridge partners with communities, donors and governments across the developing world" (Bridge International Academies Response to Bridge vs Reality, 2016).

Remarks: As of December 2006, Bridge was operating 405 academies in Kenya and serving approximately 70,000 pupils and over 6,000 staff. They currently run programmes in Andhra Pradesh, Kenya Nigeria and Uganda.(Bridge International Academies Response to Bridge vs Reality, 2016).

2. Gebeya

Continent: Africa

HolonIQ taxonomy: Apps, Education Management, Finance, Gigs, Skills Verification, Talent Acquisition, Upskilling

Problem: Future of Work and Skills

Target: Adult

Solution: TechUpskilling & Gigs Platform

Note: Matching Algorithms & Analytics

Description: Gebeya is an online freelance talent training platform and talent matching marketplace. They are building a self-sustainable ecosystem that trains, hires, and nurtures the best of African talent. As part of the upskilling and talent preparation, Gebeya runs training programmes focusing on development, DevOps and design. "Students pay to get trained with a promise that Gebeya will refund the training fees if the company fails to get the student a job within a year of completing a programme".

Remarks: As of 2019, 552 students from Ethiopia and Senegal have gone through the training programme. (Awosanya, 2019).

3. IDEA Digital Education

Continent: Africa

HolonIQ taxonomy: Apps, Curriculum, Education Management, Educational Resources, Games and Simulations, Pre-K, Teacher Resources, Upskilling

Problem: Future of Work and Skills

Target: K12, School

Solution: Learning environment/platform provider

Note: AI, Adaptive learning, Analytics for Student Success, Gamification, K12

Description: IDEA is an EdTech SaaS and CaaS company that has created high quality, personalised digital education content and software for students and teachers globally. IDEA has created interactive, data-driven, digital software, content and games for students and teachers covering all grades and localised to each national education market. IDEA has developed a completely digital STEM program from Kindergarten to Grade 12 as well as teacher training courses and ICT skills development. Each country's version is individually sequenced and aligned to the national syllabus(Idea Online, n.d.).

Remarks: According to the 2019 interview with the IDEA's founder, 189,000 studentson a weekly basis and 1,040,000 subscribers within the school term have been using the product. The Saas and CaaS models are built on a 12-36 month subscription basis (Jackson, 2019).

4. Zedny

Continent: Africa

HolonIQ taxonomy: Apps, Capability Development, Credentialing, Curriculum, Education Management, Learning Environments, Prop Online, Upskilling

Problem: Future of Work and Skills

Target: Corporate

Solution: Upskilling, training and capability development platform

Note: The platform claims to leverage machine learning and gamification techniques, adaptive learning technologies, analytics for student success (Jackson, 2020; Zedny - About, n.d.).

Description: Zedny is an Egypt based, Arabic learning and development platform. The platform uses online courses and animated video summaries of global business bestsellers to set employees, managers and individuals on a designated career learning path. These paths tackle behavioural, social and business knowledge, as well as office and digital tools. Acquired skills and knowledge are tracked, ranked and displayed in an accurate CV.

Remarks: None.

5. PrepClass

Continent: Africa

HolonIQ taxonomy: After School, International Study, Language Learning, Test Prep, Tutoring

Problem: Quality education, Study Abroad Access, Study help, Test Prep

Target: K12, Secondary

Solution: Study Abroad Services, Tutoring

Note: Universal Tutoring, Individual Programme

Description: Prepclass is a Lagos, Nigeria based company that focuses on connecting potential learners with skilled tutors. The company offers in-home tutoring and online test prep. They claim to aim at individual student needs as well as standardised test-prep such as IELTS, SAT, TOEFL and others. The company also evolves services around the study abroad domain.

Remarks: As of 2017, the founders claimed in the interview to have more than 18,000 tutor applications, of which \>6000 were experienced teachers (PrepClass : An Academic Solutions Provider in Nigeria, 2017). The company claims 30,000 students went through their test-prep app and tutoring service (About Prepclass, n.d.).

6. Yuanfudao

Continent: Asia

HolonIQ taxonomy: After School, Apps, Curriculum, Education Management, Pre-K, Q&A, Test Prep, Tutoring

Problem: Quality Education, School help, Test Prep

Target: K12, Pre-K, Secondary

Solution: Large Class Tutoring, Stydy Exercises Products, Q&A

Note: Personalization, Analytics for Student Success, Math, Large Class

Description: Founded in 2012, Yuanfudao owns a variety of online education products such as Ke.yuanfudao.com: live courses and tutoring through an online platform and offers a curriculum spanning from primary school English, Mathematical Olympiad to all-subject courses in junior/sesenior secondary schools; Yuantiku.com: secondary school exam questions learning assistant; Banmaaike.com: a Pre-K and lower K12 all-round ability training platform; Yuansouti.com: homework inspection and guidance tool for parents and teachers in primary and secondary schools; Xiaoyuankousuan.com: primary school homework app covering all kinds of questions in primary school math, Chinese, and English; Ybccode.com: a Pre K and K12 graphical programming-based learning app.

Remarks: The company claims to be preferred by more than 400 million elementary and middle school students and parents across China (Hr.Yuanfudao.Com, n.d.). According to Chen (2020), the company has more than 30,000 employees in teaching centres across China.

7. Zuoyebang

Continent: Asia

HolonIQ taxonomy: After School, Apps, Discovery, Education Management, Language Learning, Pre-K, Q&A, Study Notes/Homework, Tutoring

Problem: Quality Education

Target: K12, Parent, Pre-K, Student

Solution: Homework Help & Large Class Tutoring App

Notes: Analytics for Student Success, Language Learning & Mathematics, Parent Education & Education literacy

Description: Zuoyebang is a sub-organization of Baidu. The company offers a platform that enables students to upload their homework questions and search for answers for their study-related problems. It is also providing online courses, large live lessons, and homework help for kindergarten to 12th-grade students, as well as courses and materials for adults and parents on topics such as education literacy or parent/children relationships.

Remarks: The company claims that its cumulative active users exceeded 800 million with 170 million monthly active users and about 50 million use the service each day (Qasim, 2020; Shu, 2020; Zybang, 2021).

8. BYJU'S

Continent: Asia

HolonIQ taxonomy: After School, Apps, Curriculum, Education Management, Language Learning, Pre-K, Test Prep

Problem: Quality Education, Test Prep

Target: K12, Parent, Pre-K, Student

Solution: Visual Lessons App

Note: Adaptive learning, Analytics for Student Success

Description: BYJU'S is an Indian company develops personalized learning programs for LKG, UKG, K-12 students and competitive exams preparation competitive exams like JEE, NEET and IA. The company focuses on "new-age, geography-agnostic learning tools, which sit at the cross-section of mobile, interactive content and personalised learning methodologies". Its flagship product launched in 2015, BYJU'S - The Learning App, is creating a way of learning through visual lessons for classes 4-12. In June 2019, the company launched in cooperated with Disney and launched BYJU'S Early Learn App which targets kids specifically in the age group of 6-8 (Paresh, 2019).

Remarks: Multiple sources suggest the app has over 95 million registered students on its app and 6.5 million annual paid subscriptions. (Byju's Raises $350 Million, Becomes Most-Valued Indian Startup, 2021; Byju's Raises Another $50 Million Led by IIFL, 2021).

9. 17zuoye

Continent: Asia

HolonIQ taxonomy: After School, Apps, Curriculum, Education Management, Global Giants, Prop Online, Study Notes/Homework, Teacher Resources, Tutoring

Problem: Quality Education, Teacher Tools & Resources, Test Prep

Target: K12, Parent, School, Student, Teacher

Solution: Technology powered education ecosystem

Note: Adaptive Learning, In school & after school, Large Class, Teacher's forum & online community

Description: 17zuoye is a K12 online learning platform for students, as well as teachers and parents. The company builds their "in-school + after-school" integrated model. It offers a multi-platform homework solution that is in sync with the textbook curriculum (covering all subjects) and enhanced by big data analytics. "The company provides the teachers with teaching tools and statistics, the students with learning apps and individualized adaptive learning content, and the parents with immediate study reports". To complement students in-school learning, the company offers online K-12 large class after-school tutoring services. Its "online K-12 large-class after-school tutoring courses leverage personalization realized through a data-driven understanding of individual students' in-school performance, as well as district-level localized insights". The company also acts as a social network for these users, having the largest real-name based online teachers' forum and Wechat parent's community in the country" (17 Education & Technology Group Inc., 2020).

Remarks: As of December 31, 2020, the company had serviced over 1.0 million verified teacher users, 56.9 million verified student users and 49.4 million registered parent users on a cumulative basis (17 Education & Technology Group Inc., 2020).

10. Huohua Siwei

Continent: Asia

HolonIQ taxonomy: After School, Apps, Curriculum, Education Management, Language Learning, Language Learning, Test Prep, Tutoring

Problem: Quality Education

Target: K12, Student

Solution: A small class tutoring platform

Note: Math, Personalisation, Small class

Description: Huohua Siwei is a Chinese online education platform for K-12 children that specializes in mathematics, Chinese and English language learning. The company focuses to develop students' ability of thinking, concentration, and other core skills, which is reflected in the curriculum and learning design. Eg. mathematics thinking, is divided into three modules: spatial thinking and graphics, computing power, and logical reasoning. The company offers a one-to-many online interactive live large and small classes, AI-powered interactive games. It provides offline class lectures by teachers as well (Huohua.Cn, n.d.).

Remarks: As of 2020 the company has reportedly attracted "85,000 daily learners on its various learning apps, including Huohua Siwei Ketang, featuring math classes delivered by human teachers vialive streamingg, and XiaoHuohua AI Ke, providing AI-enabled math courses. The number of Huahua's total learners has reached 250,000" (Jingli, 2020).

11. Kahoot!

Continent: Europe

HolonIQ taxonomy : Apps, Assessment, Classroom Technology, Games and Simulations, Language Learning, Learning Environments, Teacher Resources

Problem: Classroom Technologies, Engagement

Target: Corporate, Schools, Students

Solution: Educator resources, Platform, Quiz & Classroom Technologies

Description: Launched in 2013, Kahoot! tackled the problem of engagement. The company is building a learning platform integrating new features and use-cases on the core game mechanic, which is "offering learning games in minutes for any subject, in any language, on any device, and for all ages". "Kahoot!'s platform and easy-to-use features attract educators and students as well as corporate powerhouses, sporting, and cultural events". As the platform grows in the number of features and use-cases eg. a community-based learning object sharing and discovery, or a relatively new Kahoot! Academy, which is an "online community and knowledge platform that lets educators access high-quality learning content created by Verified educators and Premium partners." However, the company's platform also offers other learning technologies, some of which the company recently acquired, which are more distant to the core of Kahoot's game mechanic such as the language learning app called Drops or an online whiteboard for classes, Whiteboard.fi (kahoot.com, 2021).

Remarks: As of 2020, the company claims to have 24+ million active accounts of which 7 million are teachers and educators, and 550K paying subscribers (Kahoot!, 2021).

12. Brainly

Continent: Europe

HolonIQ taxonomy: After School, Apps, Education Management, Learning Environments, Q&A, Study Notes/Homework, Tutoring

Problem: Study Help, Test Prep

Target group: High school, Middle School

Solution: Q&A platform, Tutoring

Note: 1-on-1 math tutoring, Help, Learning Community, Quality Education

Description: Brainly is an online learning community platform, which incorporates services related to study help services. Brainly is targeting middle school and high school students with their parents as well as schools and teachers in all subjects. Students are offered homework and study help from peers and experts. As a Q&A platform, students can ask a question in multiple ways eg. textual, photo or audio. Other members of the community are motivated by gamification elements. More recently, the company launched a 1-on-1 math real-time tutoring service. Parents have access to their child's learning progress. Teachers and schools can use the service to extend the classroom into an interactive learning environment and provide input into the service.

Remarks: The company claims to be used by 350 million teachers and students every month. Reportedly 30 million of its users is based in the United States. "Since April 2020, its user base has increased by more than 75%" (HRTech News Desk, 2020).

13. GEMS Education

Continent: Europe

HolonIQ taxonomy: Apps, Curriculum, Education Management, International Schools, School

Problem: Future-focused Education, School

Target group: K12

Solution: Curriculum, Industry partnering, Internal products suite and service development

Description: Founded in 1959, GEMS Education is an education company offering K12 private education schools, consulting practices, and charitable foundations. GEMS Education is executing multiple strategic initiatives regarding adaptation to the technology disruption to ensure agile, scalable and future-ready technology capabilities. The initiatives include the development of a new curriculum to prepare youth for a rapidly evolving, dynamic tomorrow, "delivering the provision of future technological and digital learning experiences such, and partnering with industry experts (GEMS Education, n.d.-a). Furthermore the company "has developed its own suite of products and solutions which includes: an end-to-end school management platform; an advanced learning management system; a health and safety and child safeguarding system; an enterprise mobility platform; an education CRM; a digital re-purposing platform; a unified view of education apps; and a platform to connect alumni of GEMS schools" (CXO Insight, 2021).

Remarks: The company "has 44 schools in UAE and Qatar, educating over 119,000 students, as well as schools in KSA, Egypt, Europe, Africa, India, Southeast Asia and North America" with over 14,000 employees (GEMS Education, n.d.-b).

14. Labster

Continent: Europe

HolonIQ taxonomy: After School, Apps, Classroom Technology, Curriculum, Education Management, Educational Resources, Games and Simulations, Learning Environments, STEAM & Coding, XR

Problem: Biotechnology Education Cost, Engagement

Target group: High School, Higher Ed, Professional training

Solution: Virtual learning environment & Courses

Note: Adaptive Learning, Global Science Education

Description: Labster is an internationally-focused company "which develops a platform that offers virtual laboratory simulations based on mathematical algorithms for students' e-learning". "Labster's primary product is an easily scalable online platform for teaching biotechnology". Their target groups are Higher Ed, High School, Professional training The Labster platform is a 3D virtual learning environment based on a Virtual Lab. The platform offers a simulation course catalog containing simulations which align with core science curriculum. Simulations feature background theory handouts, molecular 3D animations, and quiz questions, "that engages students in an immersive, game-like multimedia experience. Structured around cases that explore both theory and experimental processes". The product features individual adaptive student progression, and storylines to foster student engagement. For educators, the platform offers LMS integration, automated grading and teacher dashboards (Labster, 2021).

Remarks: The platform is reportedly providing access to to over 2,000 2000 high schools, colleges and universities including top universities such as MIT or Stanford, and over 3 million students (Balderton Capital, 2021; Labster, 2021).

15. GoStudent

Continent: Europe

HolonIQ taxonomy: After School, Apps, Education Management, Test Prep, Tutoring

Problem: Study Help, Test Prep

Target group: College, K12, Secondary, University

Solution: Tutoring Platform

Note: Analytics for parents, One-on-one Tutoring, Personal learning plan

Description: GoStudent, founded in 2016, is a platform for online teaching and tutoring. "Via its platform, GoStudent provides paid, one-on-one, video-based tuition to primary, secondary and college-aged students in 14 subjects, using a membership model. Lessons are booked via the GoStudent platform and accessed using a computer or a mobile device." A personal learning plan may be scheduled for each individual student. The tutoring session includes digital whiteboard, recording function and screen sharing. Parents are offered to see children progress reports. "Currently, GoStudent is operational in 15 markets" (GoStudent, n.d.).

Remarks: According to the GoStudent (n.d.) "monthly, over +400,000 tutoring lessons are booked. GoStudent currently has about 15,000 clients and 5,500 tutors" with over 600 emploees.

16. Bright Horizons Family Solutions

Continent: North America

HolonIQ taxonomy: Curriculum, Events, Mentoring, Pre-K, Prop Online, Wellness

Problem: Child Care, Lifelong Education, Parent Productivity

Target group: Corporate, Employers, Family, Pre-K

Solution: Employee and Family Education and other services, Full-service center based child care, back-up care

Note: 1-on-1, Adult education, Small Group Sizes Education

Description: Bright Horizons Family Solutions, founded in 1986, "provides center-based child care and early education, back-up child and adult/elder care" and "other support services for employers and families in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Puerto Rico and India" (Bright Horizons Family Solutions, 2021b). The central part of their business is an employer-sponsored model which is characterized by employers entering into a long-term contract for the provision of child care at a centre located at or near the employer sponsor's worksite. Their educational services are offered to their partner's employees as a workplace benefit and consist primarily of Bright Horizons EdAs-sist Solutions: providing webinars and events, one-on-one coaching and advisory for employees, and online learning centre; Bright Horizons College Coach: "provides college admissions and college financing advisory services" and family advisory (Bright Horizons Family Solutions, 2021a).

Remarks: As of December 31, 2020, Bright Horizons Family Solutions, (2021a) reported it "had more than 1,300 client relationships with employers across a diverse array of industries, including more than 190 Fortune 500 companies". In 2020 and 2019, Full-service center-based child care made approx. 68% and 82% of their revenue; back-up care made approx. 26% and 14%; educational advisory and other services made approx. 6% and 4%. (Bright Horizons Family Solutions, 2021a).

17. Coursera

Continent: North America

HolonIQ taxonomy: Apps, Credentialing, Curriculum, Education Management, Learning Environments, MOOC, Upskilling

Problem: Education Flexibility and Cost, Future of Work and Skills, Lifelong Learning Needs

Target group: Corporate, Government, Higher Ed Student, University

Solution: MOOCs platform and marketplace cooperating with education institutions

Description: Coursera, founded in 2011, "is an online learning platform that connects learners, educators, and institutions with the goal of providing world-class educational content that is affordable, accessible, and relevant. The Company combines content, data, and technology into a platform that is customizable and extensible to both individual learners and institutions. The Company partners with leading university and industry partners ("educator partners") to bring quality higher education to a broad range of individuals, businesses, organizations, and governments. The Company also sells directly to institutions, including employers, colleges and universities, and governments, to enable their employees, students, and citizens to gain critical skills aligned to the job markets of today and tomorrow (Coursera, 2021).

Remarks: As of March 31, 2021,the company reported: " approximately 82 million learners are registered on theplatform to engage with a wide range of offerings from Guided Projects to bachelor's and master's degree programs ".The companypartner s with 200 + leading global university and industry partnersin content creation and distribution (Coursera, 2021).

18. 2U Inc.

Continent: North America

HolonIQ taxonomy: Apps, Bootcamp 2.0, Classroom Technology, Credentialing, Curriculum, Education Management, Educational Resources, Learning Environments, OPM, Prop Online, Upskilling

Problem: Future of Work and Skills, Higher Ed Digitalization and Digital Transformation

Target group: Nonprofit Colleges and Universities & Students

Solution: Upskilling Services for Partner's Students, Variety of Technology and Services Supply for Higher Ed Operation & Digital transformation

Note: ML & Analytics powered platform

Description: 2U is a cloud-based Software-as-a-Service platform providing nonprofit colleges and universities "with the comprehensive operating infrastructure they need to attract, enrol, educate, support, and graduate students globally". The company distinguishes two main business segments. 1) Degree Program Segment provides the technology and services to empower the online delivery of degree programs (including undergraduate degrees). The technology and services encompass recruiting and enrollment & Learning and Student Success (live classes, curriculum, learning environments & platforms). 2) An Alternative Credential Segment provides premium online short courses and technical, skills-based boot camps through relationships with nonprofit colleges and universities. "Students enrolled in these offerings are generally seeking to reskill or upskill through shorter duration, lower-priced offerings that are relevant to the needs of industry and society" (2U, 2021).

Remarks: As of December 31, 2020, the company had 75+ university clients with 500+ offerings. "The company had approx. 3772 full-time employees and 2834 part-time employees worldwide" (2U, 2021).

19.Laureate Education

Continent: North America

HolonIQ taxonomy: Curriculum, Education Management, Learning Environments, University

Problem: Future of Work and Skills, Higher Ed Accessibility & Affordability

Target group: Higher Ed students

Solution: Private Higher Ed schools in countries with high Higher Ed demand

Note: The company recently sold many schools as its seeking new strategy & financial sustainability.

Description: Laureate International Universities (LIU) is an international network of for-profit institutions of higher education. The company claims to be focusing on countries with high demand for higher education, high growth & high demand career-focused disciplines, such as Medicine, STEM, and business education. The company claims to accelerate online & technology-enabled solutions at scale. Its new strategy includes running hybrid online programs and fully online programs. The company aims to invest in unifying technology systems of core technologies for institutions data-driven operations including online learning. The company claims to have invested in establishing a deep level of expertise in online education (Laureate Education, 2021).

Remarks: As of December 31, 2020, the company had approx. 336,500 students enrolled at five institutions in Mexico, Peru and U. S. A. with over 50 campuses. The percentage of student credit hours taken online in Laureate's campus-based institutions before the Covid-19 pandemic was approx. 28% (Laureate Education, 2021).

20. Degreed

Continent: North America

HolonIQ taxonomy: Apps, Capability Development, Curriculum, Education Management, Educational Resources, Knowledge Discovery, Skills Verification, Upskilling

Problem: Corporate training & development, Future of Work and Skills

Target group: Corporate, Enterprise

Solution: Upskilling platform designed to match companies need for mobility in solving problems.

Note: Skills & Learning Analytics for employers, Data-driven Learning

Description: Degreed provides companies with a platform that enables employees to develop their skills and create skill profiles. The platform aims to promote career mobility by matching employees to lessons and learning resources and data-driven learning activities. It integrates and curates all the resources people use to learn including learning management systems, courses, videos, articles, books, and podcasts" (Mascarenhas, 2020a). The platform has features designed with respect to corporate use-cases The employer may enter carrier opportunities for which the employers may upskill in the platform. The employer is also provided with employee skills analytics, options to integrate the company with the platform and other features (Degreed, n.d.).

Remarks: According to (Degreed, n.d.) the platform is used by approx. 6 million people in approx. 300+ companies. The platform is translated into 28 languages.

21. Smart Sparrow

Continent: Oceania

HolonIQ taxonomy: Assessment, Capability Development, Education Management, Learning Environments, Upskilling

Problem: Corporate training & development, Future of work and skills

Target group: Corporate, Educators and Institutions, Higher Ed, K12, Publishers

Solution: Adaptive and personalized learning platform, Course design studio

Note: Data-driven learning & individual learning paths

Description: Smart Sparrow is a digital education company, founded in 2010, running 2 main interrelated services. 1) E-learning Platform, which enables educators to create e-learning adaptive and personalized courseware on various subjects eg. digital literacy, computer sciences, engineering, finance, and soft skills, as well as training courses and book-based courses (Smart Sparrow, n.d.). 2) Learning Design Studio, launched in 2016, "a team of learning designers, engineers and user experience and graphic designers who will work with faculty to turn traditional courses into dynamic learning experiences" (Bolkan, 2016).

Remarks: As of April 18, 2017, the company reportedly serviced approx. 8000 educators globally (Ward, 2017). According to (Smart Sparrow, n.d.), the service is trusted by 700 institutions globally. In January 2020, the company was acquired by Pearson, London based educational content and assessment company (Pearson, 2020).

22. Crimson Education

Continent: Oceania

HolonIQ taxonomy: Admissions Platforms, After School, Apps, Career Planning, Education Management, International Study, Mentoring, School, Test Prep, Tutoring

Problem: Education Access and Affordability, University Admissions Support

Target: High School, K12, Parents, Students

Solution: Admissions support platform and services including Test Prep, Mentoring etc; Online High School network; 11–14 years old K12 support

Note: Community online social network for students

Description: Crimson Education offers admissions support to leading world top universities. The company connects students to appropriate highly personalized services to maximize their ability to gain admissions at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The company offers admissions support, online tutoring for standardised test preparation help, extracurricular coaching, career mentoring, sports consulting and more. Since 2019, the company runs the Crimson Global Academy, a private online high school network operating in selected countries on all continents (Crimson Global Academy, n.d.; Franks, 2019).

Remarks: According to Crunchbase and Crimson, the company is established in seven countries, with 20,000+ students and 2,000+ tutors and mentors.

23. OpenLearning

Continent: Oceania

HolonIQ taxonomy: Apps, Assessment, Credentialing, Education Management, Educational Resources, Learning Environments, MOOC, Portfolio

Problem: Apps, Assessment, Credentialing, Education Management, Educational Resources, Learning Environments, MOOC, Portfolio

Target group: Educators, Higher Ed, Students

Solution: Learning platform and short courses marketplace

Note: Full-stack service

Description: OpenLearning, founded in 2012 "provides a scalable lifelong learning platform and learning design services to education providers; and a global marketplace of world-class short courses, micro-credentials and online degrees for learners" (OpenLearning, n.d.-b). The platform features full-service features for educational institutions and educators to create scalable short interactive courses designed for engagement, and operate them, market them in-and-outside the platform eg. course landing page, learning analytics, branded portal or integration to existing ecosystem for institutions (OpenLearning, n.d.-a).

Remarks:"As of the end of FY20, OpenLearning has had over 4.4 million enrolments from 2.7 million registered learners across thousands of courses provided by 167 education providers, making it one of the world's largest online education platforms" (OpenLearning, 2021).

24. SEQTA

Continent: Oceania

HolonIQ taxonomy: Apps, Assessment, Education Management, Learning Environments

Problem: Education & Learning Management

Target group: Educators, K12, Schools

Solution: Educators, K12, Schools

Description: SEQTA provides schools with Learning Management System aiming at the whole variety of school's leadership, teachers, student and parents information needs in one ecosystem which may be optionally integrated with other systems. Beyond traditional LMS SEQTA features SEQTA Tutor to track student participation outside the core curriculum eg. in sports and other school activities. SEQTA is part of The Education Horizons Group, a K-12 education software provider founded in 2016 by merging SEQTA with Synergetic Management Systems. More EdTech companies joined the EHG since building variety of products including complementary ones eg. in distance education (Education Horizons Group, 2021).

Remarks: According to SEQTA (2021), the company serves 45000+ teachers and approx. 395,000 students in 600+ schools in Australia and South East Asia.

25. Academy Xi

Continent: Oceania

HolonIQ taxonomy: Apprenticeships, Capability Development, Career Planning, Credentialing, Curriculum, Educational Resources, Upskilling

Problem: Employment, Future of Work and Skills

Target group: Corporate, Individuals

Solution: Providing highly individual courses and career support

Description: Academy Xi is a training and training company providing short, small, online courses focused on specific skills for individuals and teams, resulting in a digital certificate. The courses are designed to be highly practical and employment-driven in areas such as UI/UX design, software development, design thinking, marketing etc. Students are offered with career support and mentoring (Academy Xi, 2021).

Remarks: As of June 15, 2017, the company has reportedly "worked with 2,000 students through short workshops and classes, and almost 10,000 people through events" since its launch in 2015 (Startup Daily, 2017).

Companies auxiliary analysis overview

Global Learning Landscape Cluster frequency

Clusters with no assigned companies:

• Open Research,
• Vocational,
• Robotics,
• Voice,
• Chat,
• Wearables,
• Language Testing,
• Workplace Planning,
• Performance Management,
• Internships,
• Investors,
• Internships,
• Investors,
• Accelerators,
• Awards.

Results summary

The analysis has shown that selected companies focus on problems and correspond to trends that are in some cases similar to those stated by industry experts. Among the selected companies, we most often identify inclusion in the Education Management (20 companies), Apps (19 companies) and Curriculum (14 companies) clusters. Those clusters are also the most general ones in the sense they do not discriminate products speaking of problems they are aiming to solve. Classification to those clusters has shown that leveraging machine learning and data science algorithms, using apps and arranging products around curriculum are de-facto standards among selected companies.

Based on the other clusters, we consider After School (10 companies), and Upskilling (8 companies) are aiming to solve the most distinguishable problems: Quality Education, Test Preparation and School Help, and the Future of Working and Skills.

After school: the analysis confirms HolonIQ's (2021b) statement, that After School is "arguably the fastest growing segment in the Asian EdTech space, online and offline after school tutoring and coaching supports millions of students every day of the week in thousands of online and offline classrooms and clinics". Analysed companies in this cluster often occur also in Tutoring, Pre-K and Language Learning clusters. After School companies from Asia are also represented in the Pre-K cluster developing highly scalable gamified products for children and eg. in the Q&A cluster which is supplementary. Apart from other companies, 17zuoye is also present in the Prop Online and Teacher Resources clusters developing products for schools and surrounding the education lower education ecosystem. Asian companies are specific in the Tutoring cluster, since they focus mainly on large-class delivery, unlike others that focus on 1-on-1 lessons.

Upskilling: 10 analysed companies tackle with the future of work and skills "workers in the twenty first century will likely have many jobs and multiple careers through their adult lives, they will need to constantly update knowledge and skills to remain relevant and able to fulfil ever changing job requirements" (HolonIQ, 2021b). Companies in the Upskilling cluster focus on providing highly practical educational services to individuals as well as corporate customers. Some leverage the position and build their product around the Gigs ecosystem matching the workers with skills and jobs.

Among other notable trends, we observe more traditional companies adapting to the new situation seeking a position in the rapidly scalable world, see Gems Education, SEQTA; Crimson Education and Laureate Education.

Conclusion and discussion

There is no doubt that the education sector is undergoing unprecedented changes and faces new challenges. With quickly changing learning contexts, learning needs and the growth of technology, the whole landscape of education changes affecting every dimension from tea-ching facilitation delivery to core curriculums. We found that among companies located in Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and Oceania which received the biggest funding amounts, Education Management solutions that make learning data visible to teachers, students, employers or parents are actually standard as well as providing users with Apps. Focus on After School services, and Upskilling are most significant in terms of numbers of companies competing in the clusters.

In order to draw detailed comparisons among companies, a more in-depth analysis of each company is needed. It could be built on our existing findings and datasets. Our potential next step for the study is leveraging existing auxiliary analysis beyond using it as a support process to identify Global Learning Taxonomy clusters and gain more insight. Approximation of possible 'end game scenarios' for the companies by linking the companies reported user bases, financial statements, product pricing with the industry experts market size approximations is an ultimate goal.

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4 Ibidem.

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