Demo Day wrap up
After five months of hard work, valuable mentorship and many late nights and Italian food, another cohort of xEdu graduated from the first international acceleration programme in Italy on Friday at OGR Torino.
xEdu has been a mainstay of the local Finnish tech ecosystem for almost a decade, helping early-stage entrepreneurs sharpen their pitches and develop their business models. This year xEdu has built a strong partnership with OGR Torino and Fondazione Sviluppo e Crescita CRT, the CRT family foundation focused on impact investing and human capital, in line with the 2030 Agenda, in particular goal number 9 on education. Eight years of acceleration programmes, 80 startups, more than 40 million raised. Companies that have invested through our startups include: Zanichelli Venture, GSV Ventures, Spark Mind, Rethink Education and Learn Launch.
The founders of the latest group, called NextEdu, presented their ideas to a wide audience on Friday afternoon on the stage of Sala Duomo at OGR Torino. The startups range from a platform for teaching digital skills to a startup that aims to rethink the way children learn by introducing learning games developed by scientists.
"Investor days are always an exciting moment for a startup," Massimo Lapucci, Secretary General of Fondazione CRT and CEO of OGR Torino, said on stage. "Investing in EdTech is extremely important, also to ensure access to quality education. The labour market today is more flexible and unstable, so retraining and upskilling is essential. It is also an opportunity to show social commitment. That is why we believe that investing in EdTech is very important. It is part of our mission to support this project together with Fondazione Sviluppo e Crescita CRT in the coming years. I see many good signs ahead that tell us that the future of education is digital. As you know, Dealflower tells us that we are entering the Golden Age of EdTech. Education is a $6 billion market, with 2% for Edtech, so there is a lot of room to grow."
"I bring more than 50 years of experience from Finnish education" - says Antti Korhonen, CEO of xEdu "At the beginning of this century I worked in Nokia's mWork programme. We divided the programme into two parts. I started to lead the internal programme and we wrote a book about it called Work goes Mobile, after which I moved to the startup world and have been there ever since. The other part was led by Veli-Pekka Niitamo, who started the external project, which was one of the first implementations of Living Labs at the time, and Mr Niitamo drove the European network of Living Labs. We were there in the early days, together with Jarmo Suominen, who is the keynote speaker today. EdTech is growing and the growth of EdTech means a growth of investments. In the last 15 years, the annual growth of investment in education has increased by 33% every year. And finally, we see that Europe is growing: last year, venture capital firms invested more than €2.5 billion in EdTech. This means that now is the right time for angel investors. If you invest in startups now, there will be the VCs who will invest afterwards. The world is changing and more than half of the jobs will disappear in the next few years. Retraining and upskilling is necessary. The question is: what do we teach the next generations coming into schools now, and how do we teach them?"
This year's xEdu cohort was a very diverse group: three women-led companies, two founders from America and other teams from across Europe. xEdu provides mentorship, advice and a network to the startups. Here is a brief summary of the pitches.
The full video of the event can be found here.
Jesper Ryynänen, co-founder of GraphoGame presented the evidence-based, gamified literacy learning apps for 4-9 year olds in collaboration with top universities around the world.
Loris Gay, CEO of Usophy Kids, presented the reading and learning app for children under 12 years old, that offers unlimited access to thousands of ebooks, via monthly subscription.
Katia Al-Kaisi, CEO of upiopi, presented the the startup that comes from the word “upi” and “opi” which in Finnish mean fun and learn and offers hands-on, live, online learning for kids aged 5 - 10.
Leandro Finol, Co-founder and CEO of Wonderly, presented the platform where children can learn software development, robotics, game design, maths, data analytics and languages through high-quality, engaging content.
Jussi Kajala, CEO of 3DBear, nominated one of the top 8 tech companies in the world by Bill and Melinda Gates, which has received $4 million in investment to date. 3DBear combines immersive technologies with inspiring educational content.
Davide Rizzi, CEO of Escape4Change, introduced the Turin-based startup that offers its services throughout Europe, by creating educational gaming experiences that are aligned with the 2030 Agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Maha Golestanenh, CEO of GILO Technologies, explains how the GILO app works: summarising, classifying and highlighting text, to help subscribers write business, medical, legal articles faster, smarter, and easier.
Sandro Franco, CEO of Edfluence, the app that allows users to become fluent in English through short, interactive videos with which they can have a conversation.
Photo credits: Luigi de Palma for xEdu.
