As announced last week, education startups Top Hat and Boundless have formed a partnership. As part of this partnership Top Hat will integrate content from Boundless including textbook chapters, PowerPoint slides, discussion questions and interactive exercises into its cloud based teaching platform for higher education. Through the integration more than 300,000 students at more than 400 universities including Harvard, UCLA, Duke and MIT will gain access to the Boundless’ library of 21 introductory college-level subjects. In May Top Hat announced a $10 million Series B and its expansion plans in other verticals including corporate training. We took this latest announcement as an opportunity to catch up with Top Hat’s co-founder and CEO Mike Silagadze to talk about the future of free content, acquiring competitors and the startup’s expansion plans. Kirsten Winkler: Last week you announced a partnership with Boundless. What can Top Hat users expect from this? Mike Silagadze: On Top Hat’s leading teaching platform, which increases student engagement and encourages active learning, we are now adding full digital textbooks that are customizable by the professor. Professors, our core customers, consistently ask us for great content on our platform. This partnership helps us get there and positions is to fulfil our goal to become the default classroom teaching platform for all professors. KW: Boundless went through some tough times very early on; being sued by leading publishers right at the beginning surely would have been the end for many edtech startups. Why do you think Boundless was able to survive? MS: Lawsuits like the one Boundless went through are typically death sentences for early stage companies. I believe that Boundless stayed true to its vision, was able to communicate that vision effectively and prove to the publishers that it was doing nothing wrong. In the end, justice won out in this case. KW: Is this partnership exclusive, or might Boundless partner with other providers as well. MS: Both Top Hat and Boundless are open to partnering with others. However, there is very little overlap between the capabilities Boundless and Top Hat have, which makes this a great fit. By adding great content to an amazing platform, our partnership plays on the strengths of both companies. KW: How important are products like Boundless for the future of higher education, and what is your take on OER. Is free educational content a viable alternative, or should we rather focus more on paid but affordable content. MS: At the end of the day, I believe there will be markets for both paid and free content. However, OER will change the way the market thinks about what to pay for. In the future, nobody will pay for the "text" portion of a textbook. Rather, payment will come for value-added products beyond this. KW: The space you are in with Top Hat is heating up, startups now are able to raise significant funding rounds and also seem to get decent traction. Do you think this is going to be a winner takes all market or will several players hold a share of customers. MS: For a peer classroom engagement solution, it’s not winner take all. We serve the professor, an individual decision maker. Each professor will choose the platforms and textbooks that he or she wants to use in the classroom. Ultimately, however, the winners in the space will be the ones whose products are most "sticky" for professors and meets the most needs. For us, this partnership helps us meet more needs of our customers, which will help us succeed. KW: MasteryConnect just acquired fellow Imagine K12 alumnus Socrative. Is this a sign that there are already too many edtech startups in the same vertical, a sign that there is enough money in the ecosystem so even startups can afford M&A, something else? Are we going to see this more frequently, and are you planning to acquire smaller competitors down the line as well? MS: Socrative primarily competes in a different area. It focuses on K-12, a harder ecosystem to sell into and one where there is much more competition. Socrative had not yet figured out a way to monetize its product, so acquisition by a larger startup in the space made sense. Top Hat plays in a different market with a different approach. Rather than take a user-acquisition oriented growth strategy like Socrative did, Top Hat is aiming to build a product that meets a broad set of needs for a specific customer, the university professor. As such, we are moving well beyond student response and polling and do not see the providers of those types of services as our real competitors. Rather, we're defining a new market segment as a professor-focused teaching platform. To this end, I would not rule out acquisitions of other startups down the road but this is not something we will be prioritizing in the short to medium term. KW: Back in May you said that Top Hat might expand into the corporate training market but that an entrance in the K-12 space is unlikely. Can you explain to me why you don’t consider K-12 as relevant to Top Hat? MS: Fundamentally we are trying to change higher education. We want to be the default platform used by professors in the classroom. Before we think about corporate or K-12, that is our primarily goal. Regarding K-12 vs higher ed specifically, professors have fundamentally different needs than K-12 teachers - including research, publishing and engagement of larger groups of students. We are focused on meeting professors' needs right now. Our product is still relevant to K-12 teachers, but we are not focusing on selling it into school boards right now. We'd rather stay focused on higher ed, where we still have lots of room to grow. KW: When talking about online education K-12 certainly gets lots of exposure both in North America as well as worldwide. But is there too much competition, is it too complicated to sell to schools and districts? MS: There is a ton of competition in the K-12 space. Our vision is to make teaching fun and effective. We will need to move into the K-12 space eventually but not any time soon. There is so much room in the higher education space and we are in better position to add value and have impact in higher education. KW: Which international markets do you think are next in line to adopt cloud based and mobile learning solutions. Might countries like India or Brazil leapfrog more established markets like Europe for instance? MS: Sure, Europe is ahead right now but countries like India and Brazil are able to ramp up development curves faster than ever before. We are not looking beyond North America right now, but when we do we will be looking at emerging markets and developed markets alike. Wherever teachers are teaching, students are learning and you can get cell phone reception and/or wifi, we could have a market for our platform. Further Reading Boundless Partners with Top Hat to Bring Collaborative Educational Content to 300,000+ Students | Boundless Related Links HEDLINE: Top Hat raises $10 million Series B | EDUKWEST Links tophat.com | Twitter | Facebook | CrunchBase | AngelList

The Conference for the Advancement of Mathematics Teachers is scheduled for next week. I was scheduled to speak on Wednesday, July 23rd at 2:30pm CST but will not be able to attend to present. Several weeks ago, I began having knee pain and it has increasingly worsened so that I cannot walk or stand for […]

This week two education projects serving underprivileged children in India received funding. Hippocampus which operates 128 learning centers raised $2.4 million and Sudiksha Knowledge Solutions received $50k from the Pearson Affordable Learning Fund for its pre-schools in Hyderabad. Hippocampus raises $2.4 million for Learning Centers in Rural India Hippocampus Learning Centres, a startup that brings quality education to schools in rural India, has closed a $2.4 million round of equity funding led by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), existing investor Unitus Seed Fund and new investor Khosla impact fund. Founded in 2011 Hippocampus Learning Centres previously raised $ 1.5 million from Acumen Fund and Lok Capital in 2012 and $600,000 from Unitus Seed Fund, Lok Capital and Acumen Fund in early 2014. Hippocampus Learning currently operates 128 centres with 7,500 students in the state of Karnataka. The new funding will be used to expand and establish 7,600 learning centres in villages across Karnataka and India by 2016 according to the startup. Further Reading Hippocampus raises Rs 14.4 crore in fresh round of equity funding led by Asian Development Bank and Khosla Ventures | Economic Times Links hlc.org.in | Twitter | Facebook Sudiksha gets $50k from Pearson Affordable Learning Fund for Pre-Schools in Underprivileged Areas Similarly to Hippocampus Learning Centres Pearson Affordable Learning Fund (PALF) has invested $50,000 in Sudiksha Knowledge Solutions which operates pre-schools in underprivileged areas of Indian city Hyderabad. The PALF investment is part of a larger round of funding with co-investors Ennovent, Opes Impact Fund, Village Capital, and Mr. Sadeesh Raghavan. Previous investors in Sudiksha include The Eleos Foundation, First Light Ventures, and the 1to4 Foundation. Founded in 2010 the startup currently owns and manages 22 pre-schools run by local women in the area. It will use the money to open more schools in and around the city. As EDUKWEST previously reported PALF also works together with Village Capital on an incubator program for early stage edtech startups in India. Sudiksha Knowledge Solutions was one of the two winners in the inaugural ‘Edupreneurs’ program. In May 2014 we wrote about PALF’s investment in Indian Zaya Labs which has been one of the focal markets for the fund according to the press release. In India 60% of its children never complete primary school and 90% of students never reach college which led to an explosive growth of the private education sector from an estimated $40 billion in 2008 to $70 billion by 2012 while private school enrolment of primary school students rose from 19% in 2006 to an estimated 29% in 2013 according to the Annual Status of Education Report. Further Reading Low-cost pre-school chain taps into women entrepreneurs to provide quality education to underprivileged in India | Pearson Links sudiksha.in | Twitter | Facebook Picture License  Some rights reserved by World Bank Photo Collection

It’s that time again - time to submit presentations for the K12 Online Conference! As part of the K12 Online Conference organizational team, I wanted to share the news with everyone. The theme for this year’s conference is "Igniting Innovation" and video presentations are broken down into the following four strands: Week 1 Gamification Stories […]

In this week’s edtech funding roundup we take a look at the hugely successful crowdfunding campaign for Reading Rainbow which brought in over $5 million from more than 91.000 backers. In classic funding news we got a $600k seed round for student housing startup Comfy, $3 million for data management solution provider STI and $9.7 million for Galvanize Ventures, the investment arm of co-working and learning space Galvanize. Reading Rainbow now most backed Kickstarter Campaign The Kickstarter campaign by Levar Burton to bring back Reading Rainbow was a juggernaut from the start with reaching its official goal of $1 million in just one day. In the end Reading Rainbow got support from over 91.000 individual backers, pledging over $5 million which means that the new version of Reading Rainbow will be developed for all devices and over 7500 schools are going to receive free subscriptions. Further Reading Reading Rainbow Has More Backers Than Any Kickstarter Campaign Ever | TechCrunch Links readingrainbow.com | Twitter eHarmony for Student Housing Comfy raises $600k Seed Round Austin-based Comfy, a startup that runs a platform that aims to simplify the interaction between apartment complex managers and students who are looking for a place to live near a campus. The startup has raised a $600k Seed Round led by Dominion Ventures partner Mike Lee and with participation from Austin Ventures and a group of angel investors reports VentureBeat. The service is currently free to use for both students and managers. Further Reading Student housing startup Comfy makes property managers come to you | VentureBeat Links rentcomfy.com | Twitter | CrunchBase Data Management Solutions Provider STI raises $3 million STI, a provider of data management solutions in K-12, announced that it has raised $3 million reports EdSurge. Part of the funding was used to acquire three edtech startups, namely Chalkable, Learning Earnings and Spiral Universe (more about that in our EdTech M&A roundup). STI aims to grow beyond its current offering of administrative software into student and teacher centric tools. Further Reading STI completes new raise, continous string of recent acquisitions | Press Release Links sti-k12.com | Twitter Galvanize raised $9.7 million for its Seed Investment Fund Galvanize, a network of co-working and learning spaces for digital innovators and entrepreneurs, raised $9.7 million for its seed investment arm Galvanize Ventures reports The Denver Post. The company had just closed an $18 million Series A led by University Venture Fund to expand its campuses into three additional cities by 2015 as well as growing its staff and launching new course offerings. Further Reading Galvanize Venture Fund raises $9.7 million | The Denver Post Related Links Co-Working and Learning Space Galvanize raised $18 million Series A | EDUKWEST Links galvanize.it/venture | Twitter

I was unable to present this session scheduled for July 23 at 2:30pm due to a severe knee injury (keeping fingers crossed for MRI results this Friday). Anyway, I wanted those who were interested in using cell phones or global projects in the mathematics classroom to have a copy of the presentation I would have […]

In this edtech merger & acquisitions roundup we take a look at Dev Bootcamp, a pioneer of the coding bootcamp model, being acquired by Kaplan. Along with raising a fresh $3 million, STI announced the acquisition of Learning Earnings and Spiral Universe. And Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s acquisition of e-portfolio startup SchoolChapters, after an initial investment in the company a bit over a year ago. Kaplan acquired Coding School Pioneer Dev Bootcamp Test prep giant Kaplan acquired Dev Bootcamp, which pioneered the coding bootcamp model. Founded in 2012, Dev Bootcamp offers 9-week programs in San Francisco, Chicago and New York and has graduated more than 600 students to date. The employment rate of Dev Bootcamp graduates is at 85% four month after finishing the program. Further Reading Kaplan Acquires Dev Bootcamp, Founder and Leader of the Software Developer Bootcamp Industry | Businesswire Kaplan to Buy Software-Development School Dev Bootcamp | WSJ Kaplan goes coding, buys Dev Bootcamp | ZDNet Links devbootcamp.com | Twitter | Facebook | CrunchBase STI acquires Learning Earnings and Spiral Universe Along with raising a fresh $3 million investment round, STI announced the acquisition of three edtech startups. Learning Earnings offers teachers a platform to manage in-classroom rewards to increase student motivation and engagement. Students who earn reward points in the classroom can redeem those points for school supplies, snacks, clothes, music, games, movies and other perks. Links learningearnings.com Founded in 2007, Spiral Universe is a school management platform that includes a cloud based learning and teaching environment among other features. I interviewed the founder Reuben Kerben back in 2010, link below. Links spiraluniverse.com | Twitter | CrunchBase Chalkable, the third startup mentioned in the press release already got acquired by STI back in September 2013. Chalkable is a hybrid between teaching platform and app store, giving teachers access to features including gradebook, calendar and messaging while offering a broad choice of compatible apps and content from across the web which can then be used in the classroom. Links chalkable.com | Twitter | Facebook | CrunchBase Further Reading STI completes new raise, continous string of recent acquisitions |Press Release Edtech sales are nearly impossible, so Chalkable sold itself | Pando Related Links Reuben Kerben of Spiral Universe | EDUKWEST Houghton Mifflin Harcourt acquired e-portfolio platform SchoolChapters Inc. HMH announced the acquisition of SchoolChapters, an educational solutions provider that offers tools for learning portfolios, personalized education and parent teacher engagement. HMH previously invested in SchoolChapters in April 2013. Further Reading Houghton Mifflin Harcourt acquires SchoolChapters Inc. | HMH Links schoolchapters.com | Twitter | Facebook

For the month of August, educators can try the engaging vocabulary development web based program called, "Words and Their Stories". Educators can get a single student license to try the program for only 99 cents for the month of August! You can try the program and see how motivating and engaging this award winning program […]

Following last year’s program in India, Pearson Affordable Learning Fund and Village Capital are looking for their next batch of edupreneurs in Africa. The edupreneurs program will operate in South Africa but education entrepreneurs from the entire continent are invited to apply for the incubator program. Pearson and Village Capital are looking for startups that serve students in low-income communities. Projects need to be for-profit but not necessarily tech focused. The program will start in fall, hosting up to 15 startups. The two winners, which will be selected through peer review, will receive up to $75k in seed funding. Applications for the program are now open and close end of August with the selected participants being announced end of September. The program starts in October and runs through early January. Pearson and Village Capital fund second education entrepreneurs incubation program in South Africa July 09, 2014 London, UK - 9 July 2014 - Today Pearson (www.pearson.com), the world’s leading learning company, in conjunction with the investment firm Village Capital (www.VilCap.com), announces its second "Edupreneurs" programme. The 2014 programme will support and invest in education entrepreneurs across Africa that are serving some of the world’s less privileged students and solving the world’s most pressing educational challenges. Two winners will be selected through peer review by fellow education entrepreneurs, and will be offered up to USD $75,000 in seed funding. The Pearson Affordable Learning Fund, established by Pearson to invest in low-cost private schools and other affordable educational solutions, will once again work with Village Capital to offer African entrepreneurs the chance to receive seed investment. Building on a successful first run in India, Edupreneurs 2014 will welcome up to 15 start-ups and small businesses to participate in workshops this autumn in South Africa. Here they will complete tailored modules in business and education topics, and receive mentoring advice from other entrepreneurs, investors and professionals. These entrepreneurs will then assess one another against twenty-four criteria, co-developed by the sponsoring partners, with the top two ranking companies eligible to receive up to USD $75,000 each—drawn from USD $100,000 and USD $50,000 of capital committed by Pearson and Village Capital, respectively. "We will bring experience and mentorship from our existing seven portfolio companies to help young, innovative businesses from across the continent in tackling the affordable learning market segment. We hope to bring the best minds from leading entrepreneurial and education organizations, as well as Pearson internally, to work with our cohort. We're excited to scout across southern Africa for this unique incubation model and to continue bolstering the global ecosystem supporting education entrepreneurs," says Ember Melcher, Program Manager for Edupreneurs at the Pearson Affordable Learning Fund. Although the programme will be operating in South Africa, applications are open to ‘edupreneurs’ operating across Africa who serve students in low-income communities and intend to scale their businesses to make a positive impact on the future of learning. Seeking market-based solutions to major problems facing education for the less privileged, Edupreneurs is intended for early stage start-ups operating for-profit models in African nations, with or without technological components. "Nurturing South Africa's emerging entrepreneurs is key for Pearson, as it enables us to develop the small business sector and grow the education ecosystem that we operate in", says Riaan Jonck, CEO of Pearson South Africa. Jonck says its through programmes like Edupreneurs and their potential for success in the future that have led to small business sectors being key economic drivers in the fight against unemployment and poverty. "Enterprise Development is a key component of our transformation strategy, and we are looking forward to seeing innovative ‘edupreneurs’ emerge from this programme", he adds. Find out more about the Edupreneurs programme and apply to join the incubator. The 2014 applications will close at the end of August and selected edupreneurs announced by the end of September. The workshops will begin in October and run through early January. Identifying the best small businesses for investment is a difficult and cost-intensive process for investors. Village Capital, based in the U.S., specializes in using the power of peer support and mentoring to build investment-ready companies and to allocate capital through peer selection. Inspired by microfinance ‘village banking’, participants coach each other over the course of a programme in order to prepare companies for investment. Village Capital has operated 27 programmes globally serving more than 400 entrepreneurs. "We’re looking to build great companies that improve the quality of education for millions of low-income children across the world, and believe that entrepreneurs can see opportunities that larger players have overlooked. From the quality of entrepreneurs we can recruit, to the caliber of the technical assistance we are able to deliver to programme graduates, to the value-add assistance in helping companies grow, there’s no one we would rather be working with than PALF," says Ross Baird, executive director of Village Capital. The second Edupreneurs programme is just one element of Pearson’s open innovation strategy and efforts to work with the global start-up community to solve some of the biggest challenges in global education. The Pearson Catalyst for Education programme announced its second intake of start-ups in June, with companies paired with Pearson sponsors to work on pilot projects that tackle specific education related issues. ENDS Contact Emilie Colker +44 207 010 2329 Emilie.Colker@Pearson.com Rob Lalka rob@vilcap.com About Pearson Pearson is the world's leading learning company, with 40,000 employees in more than 80 countries working to help people of all ages to make measurable progress in their lives through learning. For more information, visit www.pearson.com. About Pearson Affordable Learning Fund The Pearson Affordable Learning Fund makes minority equity investments in for-profit companies to meet a burgeoning demand for affordable education services in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The fund was launched in July 2012 with $15 million of initial Pearson capital. The purpose of the fund is to improve access to quality education for the poorest families in the world. We invest in private companies committed to innovative approaches and improving learning outcomes. For more information, visit www.affordable-learning.com. About Village Capital Village Capital uses the power of peer support to enable entrepreneurs to solve the world's largest problems. Over the past five years, Village Capital partner programs across the world--in the US, UK, Kenya, China, India, and Brazil--have recruited over 400 entrepreneurs solving pressing problems in education, health, energy, agriculture, financial inclusion, and more. In Village Capital's programs teams help each other with product design, customer development, and financial sustainability, aided by best-in-class mentors along the way. At the end of each program, top teams receive seed investment through a democratized model that changes the way innovation happens - entrepreneurs themselves decide who gets funded. Village Capital enterprises, to date, has helped over 400 entrepreneurs who have created 6,000 jobs, served 6 million customers, and leveraged $80 million in investment capital. See more at www.VilCap.com Picture License Some rights reserved by United Nations Photo

I have read many books and blog posts about strategies for getting the new school year off to a great start and increasing student achievement throughout the school year. My five personal recommendations for a successful, high achieving classroom are shared below. 1. Set procedures and routines.  It is important that students have procedures and […]