17 promising Spanish startups edtech sector that funds and experts have on their radar in 2021 - The pandemic took off in 2020 the edtech sector that, in this 2021, collects what has been sown. Just a few days ago, Lingokids, a Spanish startup that has created a platform to teach English with interactive games, announced a Series C investment round of 33 million euros.

The confinement and closure of schools during the first months of last year forced schools around the world to implement new tools to continue teaching from home. Classes have become remote in many homes, but using a video calling app like Zoom, Meet or Skype is sometimes not enough.

For this reason, in the list of Spanish edtech startups to follow in 2021 there is a very diverse battery of solutions, ranging from apps for users to find their vocation and choose their university career well to Netflix-style platforms with educational content, such as Odilo, which precisely during the pandemic boosted its international expansion.

Odilo achieved this by offering free licenses to schools and institutes in much of the world, as explained by its CEO. She wasn't the only one. Many of these firms demonstrated their commitment to barrier-free education with similar measures.

Darío Villena works at Kapita VC, the new investment fund of Dimas Gimeno, and last year he explained to this medium that one of the factors that explain the potential that the education sector has in Spain is precisely the language. Spanish is one of the most spoken languages in the world, so companies that are born in the country have the possibility to exploit various markets by creating content in that language.

17 promising Spanish startups edtech sector

The specialist recalls that 2020 has been "a real funding madness at a global level", with more than 16,000 million dollars (13,230 million euros) in capital injections. The previous record is from 2018 and only reached 8,200 million dollars, just over half. In addition, 54% of the investments have gone to startups that are already unicorns, and Chinese firms have taken 63% of the funding.

"China leads and will lead in the coming years," says Villena.

Now Villena also highlights some of the trends in the sector that are getting a lot of support, such as keeping students ' attention. "We live in a system of overstimulations where it is no longer an information society, but a society of attention". Thus, firms such as Go4Clic emerge, which integrates various mechanics to keep students attentive and engaged.

Investors also reward "immersive experiences" and technologies such as Genial.ly although they are not clearly edtech, they do work with educational institutions and their tool to create interactive presentations is becoming increasingly relevant around the world.

One of the great revolutions of education in the digital world was the arrival of the well-known MOOCs, massive online courses. However, if you have tried any of them, you will be aware that they are rarely finished. Therefore, Villena explains that those apps that manage to improve the percentage of students who finish them will also be taken into account by the market.

17 promising Spanish startups edtech sector

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Alberto Arenaza is one of the people who knows the sector best. He is one of the founders of Transcend Network, a network that promotes founders of educational and training-focused startups. On their own website they recognize that there are many accelerators and funds supporting the sector, but none of them have a "global perspective" like the one they pursue.

In a recent interview, Arenaza also outlined several of the challenges and opportunities of the education industry. "The difference between education and other sectors is quite clear: there is always a need. And, interestingly, their demand increases when there is an economic crisis," he advances.

For example, Arenaza recalls that, however disruptive and dizzying the sector may be, schools and families are often slow to adopt new market solutions. So now there are big companies in the US going public, which have taken much longer to do so than firms in other sectors.

"There is a lot of talk about technology as if it represented education in general." Arenaza defends that you can have a very powerful education system but a "very small" edtech sector in terms of population.

It is also concerned that the digitalization of education may raise barriers. "Hunger meets the desire to eat and in Spain we have a tendency to increase educational inequality quite strong. Rich families are being grouped together with rich families and poor families with poor families, " he laments. Nevertheless, the country was able to cope with the pandemic thanks to its outstanding connectivity.

17 promising Spanish startups edtech sector

"Technology can be a great tool to reduce inequality, but it isn't always." And yet, he sees the sector with some optimism, since as a result of his work at Transcend he is able to defend that almost all the founders of firms that he has known during this time "have a very important sense of social responsibility" and "return value to society".

Arenaza detects opportunities, and even exemplifies them. "Lingokids is selling to everyone, they are doing a global project. I think that more Spanish startups would have to think about not limiting themselves to Spanish-speaking markets, " he points out. The other is that "people want to live here in Spain". And he adds: "Many founders of Latin American origin come to Spain to undertake because here they have more resources to develop truly global projects."

With all these mimbres collected, consulted with several investment funds which are the Spanish startups in the edtech sector that should not be missed this 2021. Kibo Ventures, Kapita, JME, Adara, Angels, All Iron Ventures and Toukbal Partners have responded, and 17 companies make up the list.

17 promising Spanish startups edtech sector 1-5

TopWorksheets

What it does: The flashcards on which students exercise or test the knowledge acquired in class are no longer necessarily printed and this company converts the digital versions into interactive flashcards. There is a community with teachers from 35 countries already using the platform.
Why it is important: "They have a very usable product to which they add new functionalities continuously, in addition to a large community of teachers from more than 35 countries who make their cards available to the rest classified by country, subject, age..."explains Baratech of Toukbal. "Traffic has increased 10-fold in the last 3 months. And 80% of the uptake is organic, through mouth-ear and virality. Aim for rocket!".

Go4Clic

What it does: A web service of courses that focuses mainly on the interaction between trainers and students, with an interface that aims to encourage participation and the challenge of solving problems collaboratively. It was founded in 2019 in Barcelona.
Why it's important: In All Iron Ventures they consider that the proposal of the traditional MOOCs (massive online courses) have not lived up to the offline courses because they lacked the collaborative angle of a community that bets on learning together. In this sense, Dario Villena, of Kapita, emphasizes that the essential thing is that the edtech manages to capture the attention of the students in a world with many stimuli. That's where they understand that Go4Clic stands out, which also "seeks to give a tool so that both companies and content creators can monetize their knowledge through this format in a simple way".

EDpuzzle

What it does: An online tool to edit and modify videos, both own material and resources extracted from the internet, to be projected in the classroom. It focuses on the Primary and Secondary segment and works mainly in the US market, since it was incubated and born in San Francisco but its founders are Spanish.
Why it is important: In the United States they already have "177,000 schools using the platform" and have offices in Barcelona and San Francisco, which makes the company "one of the startups that has successfully installed itself in the American market", according to Sonia Fernández, of Kibo Ventures.

Scoolinary

What it does: It is a startup with digital educational content focused on cooking, gastronomy, cocktails or sommelier, as well as hospitality management. The platform offers live sessions, courses with lessons uploaded and includes a subscription model by which users can enjoy the more than 100 courses already uploaded on the platform.
Why it is important: "It is the next adventure of Jordi Ber, the entrepreneur who founded and sold Habitissimo. Scolinary is the masterclass (the king in the USA) of chef training. The quality in terms of the production of its content is first level and its growth has begun to follow the 3-3-3-2-2 pattern, that is, triple the first 3 years and double the last 2. It is definitely a company to follow," says David Baratech of Toukbal Partners.

Let's Coder

What it does: Train people without previous knowledge digitally in 2 of the areas of the labor market with the most needs of profiles: programming and data. Once they finish the course, the startup helps them find employment. The company has the idea of digitizing all this type of technological training and giving the opportunity for everyone, from anywhere, to study. Olga Boisan, its CEO, has been awarded a Foment del Treball award together with the U.S. Consulate in Barcelona to promote women entrepreneurs in technological environments. The firm also collaborates with the Ana Bella Foundation and grants free scholarships to women survivors of gender violence.
Why it is important: "The supply and demand of technological profiles is not compensated. The startup, on the one hand, helps people to reinvent themselves and find jobs quite quickly and, on the other, facilitates companies these profiles. In 2021 it organizes a face-to-face bootcamp in Zaragoza to enrich the ecosystem of Aragon and later it will do the same in cities where there is no such training", says Pepe Peris, general director of Angels.

17 promising Spanish startups edtech sector 6-10

GrowPro

What it does: It is a platform for students who want to continue studying abroad. Bet on the experience in the destination and create international communities with which users can meet to promote leisure events, workshops, sports or travel.
Why it matters: This year they have launched a B3B business unit called GrowPro Agents so that study agencies and English academies can participate in the platform and have a comprehensive service to market products and destinations. The service also has an e-learning platform and commercial management software to process agent bookings, explains Angels ' Peris.

UNIVRS

What it does: Education is also choosing which university degree to pursue. Univrs has created a community of students in which curricula are shared and consulted so that future university students can decide with as much information as possible about which career to start.
Why it's important :" Through technology, they empower students to find their true calling and reduce one of the highest university dropout rates in Europe. In addition, they hope to become the reference application for university students beyond university access, putting the university community at the center", highlights Peris.

Opositest

What it does: It is a platform focused on the preparation of oppositions. A digital service that replaces a digital academy and offers users a database of thousands of tests and questions of public employment procedures completely updated.
Why it's important: Sonia Fernández, Kibo Ventures, points out that behind this startup is "a very good team manager" and a "market-little attacked by other players" in which there is "a benefit of being able to access content and an efficient way to be able to do tests and practice tests from various fields. They have a vision to expand to other areas of official exams at an international level," Fernández points out.

Smowl

What it does: It has already been part of a list of cybersecurity startups to follow this year, but its core is also the education business. Founded in 2012, it now stars in an explosion and last year they won the third edition of Venture on the Road, an initiative organized by Banco Sabadell and the SeedRocket accelerator. One of the big problems that education has faced during its hasty digitization in this pandemic year has been how to ensure that students are examined without copying. Smowl's solution is an eProctoring system that, using an artificial intelligence algorithm, monitors students while they take their academic tests.
Why it matters: In the opinion of Hugo Fernández-Mardomingo, of All Iron Ventures, Smowl's solution guarantees "a superior quality of online and remote evaluations, a value proposition that has become more relevant since the pandemic and the need for educational and non-educational institutions to follow up on evaluations to verify that they are carried out in a timely manner".

Ballooning

What it does: Balio has developed a community that "frees its users" by managing their money, clearly talking about money in numbers and with online content" to increase their financial freedom", explains Pepe Peris, CEO of Angels. "Balio's proposal allows more than 90% of the population to know about money, through a free course that can be dedicated 3 minutes a day for a week."
Why it is important: According to Peris, Balio will double its number of users this year and in the Latin American community "there is a growing need for control over money", which is why the startup will increase its operations in the continent "having a presence in at least half a dozen countries".

17 promising Spanish startups edtech sector 11-15

Innovation

What it does: An edtech startup specialized in a platform for students and teachers with which it aims to "generate situations that arouse their curiosity and their desire to learn". It has didactic foundations to find a new way of teaching mathematics in schools.
Why it's important: In a recent interview, its managers advanced that the product will expand to also offer resources to students and teachers of Secondary Education, and at the moment the relationship with teachers is being positive. In the words of Samuel Gil, we must follow Innovamat "to promote a more than necessary change in the way of teaching mathematics in schools".

Classlife

What it does: Administration, accounting, work, virtual campus, contact with the student. Classlife offers an all-in-one solution with a platform that sells to schools and academies. It centralizes in a single space all the tasks and processes that are done in these institutions daily, allowing to automate many tasks and avoid errors.
Why it matters: Pepe Peris, general manager of Angels (Marina de Empresas, Juan Roig) explains that, after closing its seed round, Classlife is working on its international expansion, with the focus on Europe and Latin America, "where the company already has important clients at a strategic level. The goal of the startup is to stand up to the big players in the market such as Canvas or Blackboard to continue growing exponentially," he highlights.

Genially

What it does: It offers a tool to create digital presentations and interactive material. Initially it would not fit the definition of edtech, but the truth is that their immersive experiences make "more accessible, entertaining and stimulating" training, as highlighted by Darío Villena, Kapita VC. It works with universities and educational institutions of reference at a national and international level, explains Jorge Barón, from Adara Ventures.
Why it's important: One of the 3 vertical key is education and in 2020 raised a round of funding of 4.4 million euros, with the already doubled template (exceeding 80 workers at the end of last year, detailed in a statement) and rely on reach 20 million users in 2021. "Right now they have a user base of 12 million and recently there was an interview with one of the founders talking about his jump to the United States and that they are raising a round that will give a lot to talk about," says Baron.

Kotokan

What it does: Kotokan does not focus only on the student: it is a platform that also targets teachers, providing them with content so that their students reinforce their competencies in logic and mathematics. It focuses on an age group between 7 and 12 years, so the platform does not step into the niche of other solutions such as Lingokids, focused on children between 2 and 8 years.
Why it is important: It was founded a few months ago, in 2020, and "it does not have much travel yet," warns Jorge Barón, from Adara. But its platform has already received the support of programs such as the EIC Impact EdTech, the ISDI or the European Schoolnet. "It proposes a solution for children to get off to a good start, understand and enjoy math at the ages that mark the entrance to secondary education." Hugo Fernández-Mardomingo, of All Iron Ventures, says that in Kotokan he has seen the same thing as in other firms such as Lingokids: "The value that a gamified educational proposal focused on children can have and how important it can be to complement their education through digital platforms".

Smile and Learn

What it does: With offices in Madrid, it has a series of educational content libraries and is well positioned ,with a "great penetration" in schools. It specializes in the primary and secondary education segment. It works with an application available on mobile platforms and with more than 5,000 different educational activities.
Why it is important: "It has its own content for different stages and subjects and has a great penetration in schools. Its contents are of great quality," says Sonia Fernández, of Kibo Ventures.

17 promising Spanish startups edtech sector 16-17

Odile

What it does: It has been said that it is the Netflix of education. They provide a platform service with educational content such as textbooks or other resources. Its customers are not just schools, as companies also rely on Odilo to host their training material on the platform. In the pandemic they expanded thanks to offering free licenses to many schools in Latin America during confinement.
Why it matters: Sonia Fernández, of Kibo Ventures, highlights Odilo that she has " the largest content base in digital books "and that"a large part of her focus is on improving reading for children with personalized plans that are integrated into the curricular content". Also its CEO, Rodrigo Rodríguez, defended in a Smart Business Meeting organized what is his vision of the future of educational platforms: "At a technological level, the user experience can not be worse than in entertainment or music".

Lingokids

What it does: Founded in 2014, Lingokids has created a platform for children between the ages of 2 and 8 to learn English while playing with a method they have called playlearning. The app is highly valued on the available platforms (Google Play, App Store) and has more than 25 million users.
Why it's important: Samuel Gil, JME Ventures, points out that it is the edtech Spanish "larger in size, and growth", something which confirms Jorge Baron, of Adara: "with the support of european funds referred to as HV Capital or strategic as Ravensburger, and tripled its growth in 2020, the year in which it also helped to deal with the pandemic giving free licenses to schools and NGOS." Hugo Fernández-Mardomingo, of All Iron, highlights that it has a freemium subscription model and the paid version gives access to more than 600 games, songs and videos, and a section for parents to analyze how their child is progressing. Just a few days ago, he announced the closing of a new round of investment of more than 30 million euros.

# 17 promising Spanish startups edtech sector #

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