THE PAPER TRAIL: "Venture investment in K12 education technology was up 6% in 2013 totaling $452 million," write NewSchools Venture Fund's Jennifer Carolan and Vivek Murali. Based on funding data (many sourced from us), the two also teased out the following trends and insights among the 115 K-12 deals in 2013:
- The number of seed-stage deals increased from 34 in 2012 to 59. (NewSchools participated in nearly one-fourth of them.)
- Big funding spikes for K-12 "Big Data" tools ($34M in 2013 vs. $5M in 2012) and coding tools ($23M in 2013 vs. $1M in 2012)
- Language learning companies continue to attract later-stage financing
The post also breaks down funding according to different categories. The 74 ventures in the "Direct to Learner" segment (tools designed for use outside of school) nabbed nearly half ($211M) of the $452 million funding total.
