Prosus, one of the largest EdTech investors globally, has expanded its EdTech portfolio with investments in Go Student and EduMe.
Prosus has led a €300 million or R5.3 billion Series D funding round in Vienna-based edtech unicorn GoStudent – founded in Vienna in 2016, GoStudent provides paid, one-to-one, video-based tutoring to primary, secondary and college-aged students in 30+ subjects.
The new funding will go towards GoStudent’s international expansion, product expansion through M&A, and increased market share in existing geographies.
Prosus has also led a $20 million or R312 million Series B funding round in London-headquartered EduMe. EduMe is a mobile-based training platform for the deskless workforce, used in more than 60 countries worldwide. The company provides access to education and knowledge for remote and deskless workers for companies like Uber, Gopuff, Deliveroo and Gorillas.
The new funding will allow EduMe to step up investments in product innovation and development, strengthen its leading position in on-demand workforce training, as well as expand its availability to even more deskless verticals in its core U.S. market and globally.
The education sector is estimated to hit $8 trillion globally by 2025 with the pandemic pushing the market dynamics and industry forward by five years or more.
The increasing digitization of education provides potential for success across a broad range of segments within the sector. Prosus is investing in a broad range of businesses that have a significant potential to scale quickly, now including GoStudent and EduMe.
“GoStudent has built a highly scalable business offering a superb customer experience. The company is creating a leading global platform for K12 education and the speed at which they are growing is impressive,” said Fahd Beg, COO, Prosus EdTech.
“We are living through a time when technology is transforming education globally and the inspiring vision of founders like Felix and Gregor will reshape how students learn in the future.”
In 2021, GoStudent expanded to 16 countries, including overseas markets like Canada and Mexico, and opened 19 international office locations. Over the past twelve months, the company has grown its team by +1k employees and +10k tutors and plans to increase its team further by the end of 2022.
The number of tutoring sessions booked monthly grew tenfold: while GoStudent recorded 150k tutoring sessions booked per month last January, it surpassed the 1.5M-mark by the end of 2021.
“At GoStudent, our mission has stayed consistent since our founding: to unlock the potential of every student worldwide by enabling students to feel supported in their academic journey,” said Felix Ohswald, Co-Founder and CEO of GoStudent.
“Education has seen a whirlwind of change, from remote classrooms to increased academic ambitions, and we believe there is a big opportunity to transform how students learn all over the world by expanding access to quality education. We are thrilled to receive support from both new and existing investors as we continue to revolutionise education worldwide.”
EduMe
Well-known brands like Gopuff, Gorillas, Uber and Vodafone have partnered with EduMe to provide their mobile or frontline workforces with personalised training to fit their needs.
Creating a successful workforce is at the heart of what EduMe offers its customers, and through sustained innovation, EduMe continues to deliver the necessary tools to improve the effectiveness of the workforce across multiple industries.
EduMe customers see significant increases in workforce productivity, retention and safety soon after deploying the platform across their deskless workforce. By creating easily consumable content that can be accessed from anywhere, in the existing flow of their working day, EduMe’s users and customers overcome the typical hurdles deskless businesses can face in training their workforce efficiently and successfully.
“Currently, 80% of the global workforce is deskless, but the vast majority of them aren’t given the necessary tools and training to be successful,” says Jacob Waern, CEO and Founder of EduMe.
“Covid has brought increased urgency and awareness to how critical deskless workers are in our society, from delivery drivers to retail and hospitality staff to healthcare workers, and many more. This is where we step in – delivering technology-enabled access to knowledge, which in turn enables wider workforce success.
“This investment confirms our position as the category-defining platform for deskless workforce training. It allows us to continue to develop an industry-leading product proposition while accelerating our growth in the US and globally, leading the way for a new generation of workforce learning. We are delighted to welcome our new partners.”
Denis Nikolaev, Head of Edtech Investments for Prosus comments: “EduMe realised early that the deskless workforce is critically important across multiple global industries and is growing rapidly, yet, has not been served well by existing training solutions. By creating a highly effective mobile training product tailored specifically for deskless workers, EduMe has achieved excellent traction in the on-demand industry that we at Prosus know well, with multiple exciting growth opportunities ahead. We are thrilled to partner with Jacob and the team for the next phase of the company’s growth.”
EdTech is a huge focus for Prosus which invests in companies that help to democratize access to quality education around the world.
Prosus was an early investor in the sector, having entered the market in 2016 with investments in Brainly, Codecademy and Udemy. The Group has now invested more than US$3.5bn in the sector with further investments in BYJU’s, Eruditus, GoodHabitz, Platzi, Skillsoft, Stack Overflow, SoloLearn and now GoStudent and EduMe.
