Category Archives: TNW

Sanoma’s Start-up Challenge Five Years On

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Five years on from Sanoma’s Start-up Challenge on the Future of Learning at TNW2014, I checked out how the five finalists have fared.  I’m impressed!

Winner Labster raises growth funding

Winner of the Challenge Labster has been prospering and announced at the end of last month raising $21M in a series B round to develop more digital lab simulations and to grow in the US market.  Next stop the World.

DragonBox joins Kahoot!

Maths app developer DragonBox announced today that it has been acquired by Kahoot! for $18M.  Their claim is that together they are going to make learning maths awesome!

ClassCharts wins BETT

Edukey’s ClassCharts, a seating planner and behavioural management tool, has gone from strength to strength based on the close understanding of teaching and the classroom underpinned by a strong data and analytics capability. Edukey won Company of the Year at BETT2019.

Jumpido combines movement with software to boost maths learning and looks like quite a fun thing to do in primary schools.  Although the website is still active and the company was a finalist at the Forbes e-volution Award in 2016, they have been rather quiet since.

The website for the final contender Eduvee, an intuitive learning and tutoring platform, now re-directs to the education page of custom software and consulting company Elinext, likely indicating that some form of major pivot has taken place for this company.

Impressive

Overall it’s really impressive to see how much success these companies are achieving.  We were lucky to have selected such a strong cohort for our Start-up Challenge.

Inspiring

What I found inspiring in all of the contestants at the time was their deep understanding of their customers and their passion and drive to make a difference.  Five years on you can see the positive impact of the energy they have put into their ventures.

Looking forward >>

I’m curious on how far these companies will go in the next five years, and wish them every success in turning their ambitions into reality.

Labster wins Sanoma’s start-up challenge on future of learning at TNW Europe

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Mads Bonde, CEO of Labster, pitching at TNW

Mads Bonde, CEO of Labster, pitching at TNW

Last Friday at TNW Europe, Labster (www.labster.com) won Sanoma’s start-up challenge on the future of learning. Congratulations to Mads Bonde and the Labster team on winning not only € 25,000 but also eternal fame!

Labster runs 3D virtual labs in the life sciences and allows students to run their own experiments in a concept inspired by flight simulation. They claim their labs are effective in teaching theory, cost 1/10 of a physical lab, help to motivate pupils and yield rich learning analytics for teachers. They have been working together with leading institutions including UC Berkeley, Stanford University Online High School, University of Copenhagen, University of Hong Kong and Novo Nordisk and are currently used by more than 10,000 students worldwide.

Alongside Labster from Denmark, four other promising edtech start-ups pitched for the crown in Amsterdam, including:

i) Eduvee (www.eduvee.com) from England – an intuitive learning and tutoring platform that integrates and delivers personalised curriculum-mapped content to learners on any device
ii) DragonBox by We Want to Know (www.wewanttoknow.com) from Norway – a fun, game-based solution for learning maths
iii) Jumpido (www.jumpido.com) from Bulgaria – a game re-imagining education through games combining physical exercise with engaging maths problems, and
iv) EduKey’s Class Charts (www.classcharts.com) from Wales – a behavioural data solution supporting teachers in identifying how students interact with eachother and how this impacts their learning.

We chose Labster as winner of the challenge for two reasons:
i) excellent potential impact on the future of education, showing good proof-points on learning results, cost efficiency and engagement, and
ii) a strong “make it happen” team

We were really impressed by the quality of all five of these start-ups – they all did themselves proud in the pitching and we had a heated discussion about which of them would be the ultimate winner. Thanks to you all for having joined the challenge – you are all winners!

Sanoma sponsored this initiative since we are determined to take an innovative position in creating the future of education. We were delighted to have attracted more than 100 edtech startups from 24 countries across Europe. I also appreciated the good collaboration between Sanoma Learning, SanomaVentures and VentureScout in running a successful and spirited challenge: thanks to the teams for making this happen!