Despite impressive annual growth in funding to their industry, ed tech companies are increasingly taking longer to move between early-stage financing rounds.
Using CB Insights data, we analyzed median time in early rounds for ed tech startups from 2011 through Q2’15, and also identified some of the fastest-raising companies.
Overall Trends
- For moving from Seed to Series A, the median time was 523 days (1.4 years) in 2015’s first half, longer than the median time in 2014 or in any of the three previous years.
- The median number of days between Series A and Series B rounds peaked in 2014 at 594 days (1.6 years), before declining just slightly to 585 days in 2015’s first half.
Fastest-Raising
However, we identified some individual fast-moving startups that bucked the overall trend, listed in the table below.
Seed To Series A
First on the list for speed in moving from Seed to Series A is If You Can Company, a game-based social learning startup. If You Can Company received Series A funding only ~3 months after its Seed funding.
| Company | Days | Country | Series A raised ($M) | Investors |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| If You Can Company | 73 | United States | $6.5 | Almaz Capital Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Floodgate, Founders Fund, Greylock Partners, Maveron |
| Guangzhou Zhoumo Network Technology | 84 | China | $1.1 | ZhenFund |
| AltSchool | 109 | United States | $33 | Andreessen Horowitz, First Round Capital, Founders Fund, Gil Penchina, Harrison Metal, John Doerr, Jonathan Sackler, Learn Capital, Omidyar Network |
| Moodlerooms (acquired) | 115 | United States | $7.1 | Kaplan Ventures, Longworth Venture Partners, New Markets Venture Partners |
| BrightBytes | 143 | United States | $2.5 | Rethink Education |
Series A To Series B
For moving from Series A to Series B, the speediest startup was Fullbridge. Fullbridge, a business fundamentals-learning website, raised its Series B only ~2 months after its Series A and has received a total of $27.9M in funding. Its backers include GSV Capital and TomorrowVentures.
| Company | Days | Country | Series B raised ($M) | Investors |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fullbridge | 42 | United States | $5.5 | GSV Capital, Harris Preston & Partners, TomorrowVentures |
| Remind | 139 | United States | $15.0 | First Round Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, The Social+Capital Partnership |
| Vienova | 190 | India | $3.0 | Bamboo Finance |
| Craftsy | 210 | United States | $15.0 | Foundry Group, Harrison Metal, Tiger Global Management |
| FlashNotes | 219 | United States | $7.3 | Atlas Venture, Cengage Learning, KAHM Capital, Lazerow Ventures, Lou Latiff, Michael Solomon, Softbank Capital, StageOne Ventures, The Campus Agency |
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