The role of incubators and accelerators is much wide now and it has gone beyond the four walls of the corporate start-up office to reach out, add value and contribute to the wider business ecosystems.
Across the globe, Incubators and accelerators have played a decisive role in shaping start-up networks by offering them the necessary educational, mentoring and funding opportunities for current and future diverse founders.
There may have been many business incubators around the world but it’s just the few that focus on education technology. And, it is only in the recent past that there has been a major growth in the number of these highly-focused incubators. Part of this is due to the increased attention to genuinely help education. One of the reasons why incubators are also thriving is simply because edtech is a solid investment and education technology market is expected to grow at tremendous level.
Given below are names of top edtech incubators who with their support initiative are really helping edtech start-ups to improve education sector for a better tomorrow.
1. Imagine K12– It is one of the biggest and notable edtech incubators, founded by three big names in Silicon Valley- Geoff Ralston, Alan Louie and Tim Brady. Since its inception, it has helped dozens of startups specializing in educational technology get off the ground. The company has been offering important advice, marketing help and access to venture investors. The ultimate aim of the incubator is to invigorate education through innovation and therefore you will find most of its fledgling companies follow its footstep, including recent successes like ClassDojo, Claco (formerly ClassConnect) and GoalBook. Heading into its third session this fall, it’s an incubator which undoubtedly plays a huge role in developing pivotal edtech companies.
2. Founders Factory, UK– This edtech incubator is based in London, and has been supporting startups across 6 different sectors, education being one of them. Over the years, the company has built a network and team of digital and business experts and has partnered up with major corporations like Holtzbrinck Macmillan.
The incubator along with the support of Holtzbrinck is committed to build and scale successful Edtech start-ups. In its startup program, participants and corporate backers identify problems in the education sector, build and test prototypes, validate the idea and then form a founding team for the startup. The incubator is also aiming to bring in change both inside and outside the classrooms. Louis Warner, COO at Founders Factory says, “We see the positive impacts tech is having on educational attainment too. Whether it supports teachers using data like Eedi & Teacher Gaming, improves educational outcomes like lightener, supplies teachers with resources like Airsupply or improves professional learning via gamified learning like Smartupio.
3. Eduguild– Comparatively a new edtech incubator, yet a specialised one based in India. It was started with an initiative by Maharashtra Institute of Technology (MIT) Pune. It is also the only EdTech accelerator in APAC that is backed by 3 Universities, 70 Universities with 80K students on campus every year.
Eduguild delivers a 16 week intensive mentorship and product realization program to any edtech start-up in the world. Over the years, they have not only helped many Start-ups in India, US, Russia to name all of them. The company is aiming at providing strategic support to start-ups that aspire to disrupt education and learning domain across the globe with creative and technology based solutions. They also extend help in offering seed capital, intensive mentorship, strategic connections and lifelong support to the start-ups.
4. 4.0 Schools– This incubator is based out in Louisiana and focuses on improving education by helping not just edtech start-ups but many tech-focused education businesses. It provides resources and training to help individuals who launch schools and education-related businesses in Louisiana and other parts of South-eastern U.S. It perfects the business ideas of the existing startups and also of those who are all set to be launched soon.
5. Edtech Southeast, Sweden– It is an edtech incubator aims at supporting start-ups who wish to enter and establish themselves in Sweden. They are often regarded as a cluster because of their partnership with Universities, schools, companies and the government. Speaking more on the future plans to support edtech start-ups, Niclas Melin, The Head of Cluster says, “We’ll continue to strengthen our contribution in cross-border development and market launch of new services by further developing our edtech concepts (companies can co-create and get the solutions validated in Swedish schools and growing our international partnerships. As a result, start-ups and established companies will have a more straightforward and more efficient validation process across several markets.”
6. Edtech UK & Edtech Incubator– Edtech UK & Edtech Incubator is an incubator project by the Education Foundation that aims at accelerating partnerships and support for reforms in the education sector in Britain. The incubator supports edtech start-ups in London and all over the UK by helping both educators and entrepreneurs realise their innovative ideas. It also helps develop edtech clusters across the UK, edtech accelerator programs and with organizing edtech networking events.
7. Injini– This incubator specialises in offering incubator programmes across Africa. It ensures that anyone with an idea and that who can raise education standards at scale wherever and whoever they are have an access to early stage investment and support.
The company selects a cohort of start-ups from across Africa every six months to deliver every possible support- both in terms of monetary and business guidance to help them scale their services across the continent. It helps solve Africa’s education problems and realise the huge potential for richer economies and stronger societies across the continent.
8. FocusTech Ventures– This incubator offers support to founders that show interest to solve real world problems and improve crucial workflows of and pervasive inefficiencies in major enterprise industries, education being one of them. Their support to start-ups is mainly to offer unique solutions solving hard problems in sizeable markets with potential to grow and dominate in the product categories.
9. XEdu– This incubator is based in Helsinki, Finland. It offers support to start-up companies who are into product development and market penetration for both local and global markets. They offer mentoring and coaching by a team of industry experts. These experts guide start-ups providing details about the real classroom environment to experiment on product research and development. The selected companies are also given an access to global network of distinguished figures in the education sector, working together with xEdu’s partners such as Samsung and Telia in co-creating products.
10. Kellogg Education Technology Incubator (KETI) – This Edtech incubator is based in the US which aims at creating the premier technology experience amongst business schools. They fund tech start-ups created by students for students.
11. MINDCET: MindCET is a center for innovation and technological development in education, founded by the Center for Educational Technology – CET based out of Tel Aviv, Israel.
Did we cover all the biggies from the edtech incubator world? Or did we miss out any influential name? Please drop your comment in the box below!
