LearnLaunch: East Coast Education Technology Incubator

column | Startups

LearnLaunch: East Coast Education Technology Incubator

By Betsy Corcoran (Columnist)     Dec 12, 2012

LearnLaunch: East Coast Education Technology Incubator

Sure, lots of startups pop up in Silicon Valley. But especially in education the action is brewing all over the US--not to mention the world. Just look at the Boston area, which not only has has the most active edtech meetup scene outside of San Francisco but now boasts close to 150 education technology ventures.

That's enough to encourage Marissa Lowman, who's been steadily hosting those meetups to start the nonprofit LearnLaunch to shepherd and grow edtech startups in Beantown and other parts of the great northeast. Lowman's convened two smart partners to help her: entrepreneur-turned angel investor, Jean Hammond, and former Chicago educator, Eileen Rudden.

LearnLaunch will have a number of facets: it is hosting local classes for aspiring entrepreneurs on topics like the mysteries of SEO for education ventures, supporting peer mentoring and holding events including an annual conference. (Conference alert! February 1-2 at M.I.T. Yep, we'll be there!) Next year, Lowman says the team will also launch a for-profit incubator space.

There's a second incubator effort brewing in Boston as well: Exponential Boston has been raising money with an eye toward launching in mid 2013. It too aims to help ed-focused entrepreneurs, talking about a six-month long program with $25K initial investment (for 6% of the company) and may kick in another $25K if the companies raise the same amount while in the program. Expontential is led by Boston University entrepreneurship prof, Vinit Nijhawan; Mark Miller, a banker who often works with edtech companies; and entrepreneur Hakan Satiroglu.

Both accelerators want to help build a strong ecosystem, notes this story in Boston.com.

Editor's note: We're republishing this expanded version of the story because we left out too many good details last week! Sorry about that.

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