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Here is the latest data on “the business of ed-tech” for July 2017:

  • Amount of venture capital invested: $194,855,440
  • Number of investments: 15
  • Average investment size: $13.9 million / Median investment size: $2,090,000
  • Number of acquisitions: 6

Investment Trends


The amount of money invested so far this year remains higher than at the same time in 2016 and 2015. But the number of investment deals has fallen. That is to say, the funding total for the year is being driven by a small number of very large investments – there have been seven of $100 million or more.

Acquisitions are also down from previous years – and down rather dramatically: only 46 so far this year compared to 68 this time last year and 64 the year before.

The types of companies that seem popular with investors include:

  • Private student loans – $510 million raised so far this year
  • Online education – $485.5 million raised so far this year
  • Tutoring – $153.6 million raised so far this year
  • Behavior management – $150 million raised so far this year (by one company)
  • Language learning – $142.2 million raised so far this year
  • Test prep – $78 million raised so far this year
  • Coding bootcamps – $35.3 million raised so far this year (In addition, learn-to-code apps have raised $6.8 million)

The Biggest Investments So Far This Year


The companies that have raised the most money so far this year:

  • SoFi (private student loans) – $500 million
  • EverFi (“critical skills” training) – $190 million
  • Hero K12 (behavior management) – $150 million
  • Yuanfandao (tutoring) – $120 million
  • Grammarly (grammar and spelling assistance) – $110 million
  • Xueba100.com (homework assistance) – $100 million
  • Liulishuo (language learning) – $100 million
  • BYJU’s (test prep) – $70 million
  • Coursera (online education) – $64 million
  • AltSchool (private school; learning management system) – $40 million

Download the Data


Over the past few weeks, I’ve been updating how I track and manage this funding data. You can now find separate GitHub repositories for all areas of funding that I monitor:

These sites include human- and machine-readable versions of this funding data.

If you see an error or omission, please file a GitHub issue. You’re welcome to fork or download the repositories too, of course.

Audrey Watters


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