Top Education Startups in 2022: Overview
The technological advancement of the last two decades has changed the way children and adults learn and acquire new skills. Nowadays, a variety of digital tools and platforms help people all over the world to get high-quality education in each and every industry sphere. This trend became even deeper with the COVID-19 pandemic that resulted in lockdowns. According to UNESCO reports, about 214 million children were out of school due to the closures. This factor made teachers, students, and education systems find new ways of delivering information and education materials.
Edtech startups are a driving force of these changes. The business owners keep coming up with exciting ideas that make education accessible and involving. They create virtual labs, VR simulators, self-learning courses, websites for tutors and teachers as well as fundraising sites. It seems that nowadays you can learn any new skills online. No wonder the edtech industry is expected to grow by $112,39 billion in the upcoming years.
As this industry has so much potential, our team did its own research and found out which edtech companies are shaping the industry in 2022. Meet our list of education startup companies worth watching in 2022. Let’s find out more about them!
Learn more about new aspiring technologies and startups in Stories and articles.
- Simply
Simply app allows users to learn to play musical instruments Founded: 2011
Headquarters: Tel Aviv, Israel
Investors: Aleph, Insight Partners, Google Ventures
Simply is one of the cool startups created by the company named JoyTunes. Simply app allows users of all ages to learn to play musical instruments online. After joining Simply, they can opt for one of the activities: playing either guitar or piano or singing. The app was created by a team of professional musicians, designers, data scientists, and software engineers. They invented an acoustic recognition engine and installed it in the app. So, the Simply application can listen to what a learner plays and sings, analyze this data, and give immediate feedback. The app users can buy a family subscription and give all family members an opportunity to try out new activities too.
More than that, we think that Simply owns one of the top startup websites. The site UI is full of hand-drawn illustrations and live videos that make it look friendly and provide users with an engaging user experience.
- Labster
Labster provides virtual labs for acting out scientific experiments Founded: 2012
Headquarters: Copenhagen, Denmark
Investors: GGV Capital, Educapital, Owl Ventures
Labster is a science education company that gives students an opportunity to perform scientific experiments in a virtual 3D laboratory. It provides users with virtual labs and simulators that help them act out actual scientific experiments in a safe environment. This edtech space brings several benefits to both students and their teachers. First of all, it helps users visualize complex theoretical concepts making them more enjoyable to study. Besides, Labster makes expensive equipment accessible. And what is more important, students can study the safety protocols and lab procedures before entering a real laboratory. The teachers are provided with dashboards that can be used for tracking students’ results. To engage as many students as possible, Labster provides multiple language versions of the service. Also, the service is adapted to hearing and eyesight impaired users. In the end, we have a great digital tool that can stimulate the kids’ interest in physics and chemistry, which is why it can be called one of the top tech startups to watch.
- Photomath
Photomath helps children to crack complicated math tasks Founded: 2014
Headquarters: San Mateo, United States
Investors: GSV Ventures, Cherubic Ventures, Learn Capital
Photomath is one of the most innovative startups that help kids and teenagers study math. Whenever facing a tricky math task, users just need to scan it, and the app helps to solve it. The provided solution is accompanied by a step-by-step explanation aimed to help the students crack similar tasks in the future. Students of any grade may find this interesting startup especially useful as it covers the whole curriculum — from elementary math to algebra and trigonometry. The idea hit the founder when he was struggling to help his children with their homework, so he came up with an AI-powered solution that now helps millions of kids and their parents.
- Mursion
Mursion helps to improve soft skills Founded: 2014
Headquarters: San Francisco, United States
Investors: Leeds Illuminate, Figure 8 Investments, New Markets Venture Partners
Mursion is another technology startup worth watching. While many of us think that VR is a tool for gaming or other forms of entertainment, some online education companies turn it into an irreplaceable professional training tool. Mursion provides professionals with a virtual reality simulator where they can improve their soft skills. This AI-assisted platform is used by a wide range of organizations in the fields of education, healthcare, finance, HR, and many others. The platform uses a combination of AI and real actors who simulate challenging interpersonal situations that professionals can meet in their everyday life. During role-plays, employees learn to cope with emotionally-charged situations and improve their leadership skills using flexible and user-friendly software.
- Byju’s
Byju’s provides children with online classes Founded: 2011
Headquarters: Bangalore, India
Investors: Vitruvian Partners, BlackRock, Sumeru Ventures
Byju’s is one of the biggest edtech companies and education brands in the world. The company offers a variety of educational services starting from 1-on-1 personalized lessons with professional teachers to apps that provide self-learning courses. The company specializes in K-12 education. Its educational programs cover a variety of topics including coding, reading, music, animation, and video, but it mainly focuses on math and science. The materials are provided in different languages including Indian regional languages and English. This educational corporation constantly updates its products and comes up with new projects like Exam Prep which helps students prepare for international exams and Future School which provides pupils with short tutorials about math and coding. The personalized user experience and innovative approach of Byju’s owners made it the first Indian edtech unicorn with over 150 million users around the world.
- Immerse
Immerse is an e-learning platform for learning languages Founded: 2017
Headquarters: San Francisco, United States
Investors: Eagle Venture Fund
Immerse is another digital education company that allows students to use VR technology for studying. In this case, virtual reality is used to make language learning a more immersive and engaging process. The creator of this startup used to be a volunteer in refugee camps located in Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq. During that time he faced a language barrier and had to learn Arabic — one of the most complicated languages on the globe. Thanks to this experience, he realized that language immersion is the key to fluency. That’s why he created a platform where students can fully immerse themselves in the process of learning languages. When students use the platform, they can create and customize their own avatars, choose locations, and get rewards for passing the levels. The VR allows them to interact with virtual objects, play interactive games, attend virtual events, and act out real-life conversations with their peers and teachers. Right now only Spanish VR simulations are available but other languages are to be added to the platform soon. This new startup company keeps developing its digital product, and we believe it will become one of the best startups for language learning in the near future.
- Codeyoung
Codeyoung is an online platform where children can learn to code Founded: 2018
Headquarters: Bangalore, India
Investors: Guild Capital
Codeyoung is one of the hottest new startups that attracted its first clients in 2020. Codeyoung is an interactive coding platform for children of 5–17 years. The main goal of this startup is to provide kids with an interactive and exciting education experience that allows them to get a job in the future. The courses are tailored for children of various age groups. This e-learning company not only provides its students with cool educational materials but also holds IT events like hackathons. Interactive lessons help younger students study block-based programming, while the older students learn to use coding languages and develop interactive websites. While studying, they create complex products like games, corporate sites, and apps. The platform users get rewards for their achievements.
If you are interested, check out the projects of Codingyoung students.
- MasterClass
MasterClass provides kids with video lessons from iconic artists Founded: 2015
Headquarters: San Francisco, United States
Investors: Vershina Capital, Empede Capital, UTA Ventures
Not all kids want to dive deep into math, coding, or science. Some are searching for a way to express their creative side. MasterClass is a top tech startup that connects students to an online streaming platform where they can learn from world-leading specialists. The online classes are dedicated to cooking, design and style, sports and gaming, writing, filmmaking, and other crafts. Each class consists of twenty 10-minute video lessons that students can watch one at a time or all at once. All the videos feature close-ups, hands-on demonstrations, and cinematic demonstrations that allow students to study topics as thoroughly as possible. Moreover, the lessons are supported by workbooks aimed to help students sharpen their skills. The lessons are recorded by iconic artists, chefs, and producers like Gordon Ramsey, Duffer Brothers, and Kris Jenner. The platform materials can be accessed through smartphones, personal computers, or Apple TV.
- Springboard
Springboard is a famous startup company that provides self-learning courses Founded: 2013
Headquarters: San Francisco, United States
Investors: 500 Startups, Costanoa Ventures, Learn Capital
Not only children but also adults have an opportunity to learn something new and change their jobs. Springboard is a famous startup company that provides adults with self-learning courses in the fields of design, coding, cyber security, data science, and tech sales. All the classes at Springboard are held online, and they can be accessed at any time of the day or night. The experts of the platform constantly update the courses to provide platform customers with information about the latest tools, techniques, and industry practices. What is more important, the platform students are supported by mentors, the student community, and advisors. This e-learning platform guarantees that by the end of the course, students will find the job of their dream. The students can study course materials whenever it is convenient for them and combine studying and working hours. This flexible approach makes Springboard one of the most adaptive learning companies.
- NeighborSchools
NeighborSchools inspires caregivers to create their own daycares Founded: 2018
Headquarters: Boston, United States
Investors: Hannah Grey, Metrodora Ventures, Accomplice
NeighborSchools is a popular US startup whose mission is to inspire caregivers to create new independent daycares and provide kids around the US with affordable child care. Unfortunately, not all daycares provide high-quality services and pay fair salaries to child care professionals. NeighborSchools aims to give child care providers an opportunity to go independent and open home-based daycares within their community. The startup owners believe that caring for children is an important job and that caregivers deserve bigger salaries, which makes NeighborSchools one of the best education companies to work for. To enter the program, parents need to go through a short survey, and after that, the platform finds a caregiver who matches the family’s needs. Thus, the startup brings benefits to all its counterparts: Child care providers get higher wages, parents receive the help they need, and children get personalized care from professional caregivers.
- Teachers Pay Teachers
Teachers Pay Teachers is a marketplace for educational resources Founded: 2006
Headquarters: New York, United States
Investors: Tiger Global Management, Spectrum Equity, True Ventures
Teachers Pay Teachers is a startup popular among teachers and tutors. It is a marketplace for educational resources like lesson plans, worksheets, presentations, and interactive digital resources. The company was founded by a New York teacher Paul Edelman who always struggled to find the needed educational materials for the lessons, so he came up with an idea of a website where teachers, tutors, and parents could share the educational content they create. At first, it was just a website for exchanging lesson plans but later the idea turned into a powerful tool used by more than 7 million educators. It is estimated that the platform is used by 2 out of 3 U.S. teachers every year. A great result, isn’t it?
- Chegg
Chegg makes higher education more affordable and accessible Founded: 2005
Headquarters: Santa Clara, United States
Investors: PAR Capital Management, Kleiner Perkins, Employee Stock Option Fund
Chegg is a public edtech company that gives students access to an online platform with a set of tools. The mission of the platform is to make higher education more affordable and accessible as well as to improve study outcomes. Chegg helps students in debt to ease their financial burden allowing them to exchange, buy or sell expensive used educational materials. Also, the platform provides the students with access to writing tools and math help. All the platform subscribers can take advantage of free online tutoring and use career search to obtain the job of their dream. This set of tools is available online at any time of the day and night. Although the headquarters of the company is located in the United States, the international offices are spread all around the world.
- GoStudent
GoStudent is a tutoring startup for students and private tutors Founded: 2016
Headquarters: Vienna, Austria
Investors: Left Lane Capital, SoftBank Vision Fund, Tencent
GoStudent is a tutoring startup that helps students and private tutors connect with each other. GoStudent revolutionizes the way the tutoring market is functioning. It is an AI-powered application that helps students find tutors that match their needs. All the processes like rescheduling, finding available sessions, replacing tutors, and payment, are automated, so the platform users can enjoy a seamless user experience. GoStudent analyzes the needs of the students and finds the tutors that match them. Students can connect to their tutors, get help in cases of uncertainty, receive feedback, and get answers to their questions. The studying happens in the form of private 50-minute lessons. The startup owners believe that all kids are different and need different teaching approaches, so they are provided with adaptive learning plans. The platform is extremely flexible, so GoStudent can be called an adaptive startup.
- GoPractice
GoPractice offers training for product managers, designers, and data scientists Founded: 2013
Headquarters: Simpsonville, United States
Investors: Undisclosed
GoPractice is an educational platform that specializes in startup training. It doesn’t offer a lot of courses as other edtech companies do. Instead, the e-learning platform provides product managers, designers, and data scientists with courses that help them to build and scale successful products. It has its own ecosystem of products that help both junior and senior specialists with career growth. GoPractice team believes in a data-driven approach and aims to help professionals understand how to make informed product decisions. Another useful option is a skill assessment test that helps professionals estimate their professional level and create a personalized development plan.
- Kahoot
Kahoot allows users to create their own learning games and quizzes Founded: 2012
Headquarters: Oslo, Norway
Investors: Stefan Blom, SoftBank, Microsoft’s Venture Fund
Kahoot is a global education software company that aims to make the process of studying more engaging, letting people learn without even realizing it. The service allows users to create their own learning games and quizzes. With the help of the platform, users can turn school lessons and professional meetings into mini quiz shows. The quizzes on any topic can be created within a few minutes. All quizzes can be displayed on both small and big screens which makes it easier to play with the others. Kahoot can also be used as an assessment tool. The reports that become available after each game can be used to estimate the knowledge and skills of the players. Kahoot is used for studying in more than 200 countries which proves that games are still a great learning tool.
Do you have an edtech startup idea?
As you may have noticed, all these cool startups are based on well-designed and intuitive applications and websites. If you have your own idea for an inspiring educational service, just contact us. Our team is always ready to bring exciting ideas to life!
Ronas IT team can help you with UI/UX design, branding, graphic and logo design, along with the development of web and mobile products. We will help you launch the working version of the product just in 3 months in order to increase profits or reduce operating costs.
Learn more about Ronas IT services.