3 ms·

I'm curious as to where the author got the "$100 million max" number. There has been significantly more than that invested in the industry. Four companies alo

I'm curious as to where the author got the "$100 million max" number. There has been significantly more than that invested in the industry. Four companies alone that I can think of have raised about $100MM alone (2tor, Global Scholar, Grockit, Smart.fm) and there have been dozens of smaller financings (and no doubt some bigger ones I'm omitting). Private equity guys have also been at work here funding companies like Grand Canyon and Bridgepoint (both of which IPOed and returned big #s). I agree that education has been an under-invested in industry but question as to whether the amounts are low as are stated in the article.

rafaelc 16y ago
To clarify: on average, over the past 5 years, the estimate is $100 million max per year. Those are great examples but Grockit pulled in $7 million this year. Even if you add in 2tor's anomalous number this year ($22 mln) you still have a way to go to get to $100 mln this year for VC financings.
- jonbischke 16y ago
  In the last six months -Knewton raised $12.5MM -Eleutian Technology raised $10MM -Orbis Education raised $8MM -LiveMocha raised $8MM -Kakai raised $7.5MM -Moonshoot raised $6.6MM -Cramster raised $6MM That's about $100MM in the last six months alone and this is an industry where there are a number of fundings that never get announced. Again, I agree with your main premise, just not sure the data is as dire as you suggest.
  - rafaelc 16y ago
    Good point over the last six months. Still, that's why I said averaging $100 mln per year over the last 5 years. For example, last year was an incredibly challenging year for everyone but the investment in education was really low and counts for that 5 year average. Regardless, you can look back over the years before and see that it hovered around $100 mln average per year. Stepping back, your last 6 months point is why I wrote the article -- you can see that VC investments are accelerating, and it's only going to get better for guys like you and me with education startups.
  - rafaelc 16y ago
    One more point: from that same Berkery Noyes presentation, there is a table that has VC investments by category. The smallest one that shows up as a category (for 2008, a fantastic year until the fall) is Healthcare Services at $191 million that year. That drives part of the "around $100 mln a year over the last 5 years" point too, since it's safe to assume that Education is somewhere under that amount. Though to be fair, disagreeing about whether it's an average of $150 mln or $100 mln over the past 5 years does get away from the larger point, which I think we agree on.

rafaelc 16y ago

To clarify: on average, over the past 5 years, the estimate is $100 million max per year. Those are great examples but Grockit pulled in $7 million this year. Even if you add in 2tor's anomalous number this year ($22 mln) you still have a way to go to get to $100 mln this year for VC financings.

jonbischke 16y ago
In the last six months -Knewton raised $12.5MM -Eleutian Technology raised $10MM -Orbis Education raised $8MM -LiveMocha raised $8MM -Kakai raised $7.5MM -Moonshoot raised $6.6MM -Cramster raised $6MM That's about $100MM in the last six months alone and this is an industry where there are a number of fundings that never get announced. Again, I agree with your main premise, just not sure the data is as dire as you suggest.
- rafaelc 16y ago
  Good point over the last six months. Still, that's why I said averaging $100 mln per year over the last 5 years. For example, last year was an incredibly challenging year for everyone but the investment in education was really low and counts for that 5 year average. Regardless, you can look back over the years before and see that it hovered around $100 mln average per year. Stepping back, your last 6 months point is why I wrote the article -- you can see that VC investments are accelerating, and it's only going to get better for guys like you and me with education startups.
- rafaelc 16y ago
  One more point: from that same Berkery Noyes presentation, there is a table that has VC investments by category. The smallest one that shows up as a category (for 2008, a fantastic year until the fall) is Healthcare Services at $191 million that year. That drives part of the "around $100 mln a year over the last 5 years" point too, since it's safe to assume that Education is somewhere under that amount. Though to be fair, disagreeing about whether it's an average of $150 mln or $100 mln over the past 5 years does get away from the larger point, which I think we agree on.