By Guest Contributor Lisa Wolfe
The U.S. K-12 education market seems to be poised for more growth. According to the spring 2023 report from Research Dive, the global education market—led by North America—will grow by 17.7 percent through 2031 with artificial intelligence, such as ChatGPT, driving revenue increases.1
As the market continues to emerge from the pandemic and prepares for the ways new technologies will drive its future, let’s take a look at highlights in acquisitions, investments, and new hires from the second quarter of 2023.
- Panorama Education acquired Mesa Cloud, a graduation management system.
- Kevin Hogan joined eSchool Media as content director.
- Swing Education raised $38 million in a Series C round to invest in expanding its platform which connects schools with substitute teachers.
- Age of Learning appointed former U.S. Department of Education official Jason Botel as vice president of national partnerships.
- Houghton Mifflin Harcourt named Jean Desravines, CEO of the nonprofit New Leaders, and Barak Eilam, CEO of NICE, to its board of directors. The company also acquired Quebec-based education technology company Classcraft.
- BookNook named Jared Harless chief product officer.
- Reflection Sciences appointed Isaac Van Wesep CEO.
- Michelle Froah is the new global chief marketing officer of ETS and Paul Gollash is the new general manager of its K–12 business. The company was also awarded $3.25 million from the National Science Foundation to use algorithmic tech to encourage inclusion in STEM careers.
- LINQ named Bryan Jones CEO.
- Jan Dierks joined EmpowerU as vice president of sales.
- School transportation company Posidrive named Harsit Patel president, Sung Kim chief financial officer and Campbell Millum vice president of communications and external affairs.
- Chris Hedrick joined Carnegie Learning as chief revenue officer.
- BeeReaders raised $3.5 million in seed funding.
- Coder Kids secured $1.45 million in state tax incentives from the Indiana Economic Development Corp.
- Learning management system Go1 acquired the book summarizing subscription service Blinkist.
- Pearson announced the appointment of Tony Prentice to chief product officer and co-president of direct to consumer.
- Promethean reached an agreement to merge with Gravitas Education Holdings, Inc. and to spin off from Net Dragon.
- Frontline Education appointed Scott Ryan as chief revenue officer and Curtis Hampshire as chief client operations officer.
- Raptor Technologies acquired SchoolPass.
- Brightwheel, an all-in-one early education platform, acquired Experience Early Learning, a research-based early education curriculum provider.
- Innovare, an education analytics platform, raised $2 million in additional seed funding.
- Docebo, a learning platform with AI capabilities, acquired PeerBoard, a knowledge-sharing platform.
- Five Arrows acquired n2y, a provider of education technology solutions for students with learning challenges.
- CoderZ, a, gamified, cloud-based robotics and STEM platform, appointed Tony Oran as U.S. CEO.
- Highlights for Children acquired Tinkergarten, a company that provides research-backed, play-based outdoor learning experiences for young children.
- Immerse Education appointed Tiago Mateus as CEO.
- Rahul Roy-Chowdhury is Grammarly’s new CEO and Noam Lovinsky is the company’s new chief product officer.
There’s no doubt we live in exciting times! We’ll share more of the 2023 growth and movement in the K-12 U.S. education market in September.
Lisa Wolfe is the president of L. Wolfe Communications. Founded in April 2000, L. Wolfe Communications offers its clients a network of senior, experienced public relations executives with a variety of complementary experience and expertise in public relations and communications for the education and library markets.
