Savvy edtech investors need to understand the relationships within and beyond the school building navigate a complex regulatory environment around student data privacy, content standards, and accessibility and respond to the diversity of realities that students face, especially the legacy of exclusionary and structural barriers. Investing in edtech requires a different set of practices, metrics, and expertise than mainstream consumer technology, which can lean on standard tactics like user growth, engagement, and revenue. As any educator will tell you, context matters, and decades of research have shown that it is crucial to understand this in order to best serve students.

And it was the lack of “how” that was troubling.

While the billions of dollars at play in the K-12 edtech industry might seem like an automatic win for the country’s 40 million public school students, how those dollars are invested matters. Of that, $1.4 billion went for K-12 edtech products, a group that includes both products and services used in schools, and those that are used among K-12 students or providers in other learning settings such as homes or enrichment programs. edtech companies raised $5.2 billion in 2022, a precipitous decline from $8.2 billion the previous year, but still more than double pre-pandemic levels. As philanthropic leaders with a birds-eye view of the edtech sector, we still see a lot of room for it to live up to the opportunity of catalyzing the sort of change that will solve our greatest educational challenges.Įdtech investment is big business. The ASU+GSV Summit is arguably one of the most important events on the K-12 education calendar. The star-studded program featured remarks by NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabar, actress Jane Fonda, and former Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, among others. The theme of this year’s gathering was “Brave New World,” apparently a non-ironic nod to Aldous Huxley’s 1932 dystopian novel of the same name. Last month, business executives, tech entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, policymakers, celebrities and philanthropy professionals – including us – descended on San Diego for three-days of ASU+GSV.

Hype and vice asu