Edurio feedback tool for schools has been tested in Latvia, UK and India, and is now buffing up for expansion.
We had covered them in detail here, just after they won TechChill Baltics pitch competition in February. Edurio will be pitching at FiBAN PitchNight on Sept 22. You can view their latest pitch deck here.
The pilots gave us great feedback. One principal even sent us a note thanking for 1 week of holidays she reclaimed instead of collating survey responses and analyzing the results.
The team is now working on improved school data input and wider functionality, especially in data analytics. Their next milestone is to release a free version for teachers in September and a new version for schools in November.
Alex Wyatt, a business angel from Australia with impressive background has invested in the company together with Imprimatur Capital who had provided them a €50,000 soft loan earlier.
I am delighted to invest in Edurio. I know the CEO, Ernests Jenavs, and I believe he is an outstanding entrepreneur. Ernests and his co-founders have assembled a world-class team, which is a great credit to the educational system in Latvia.
The 15,258 km between Melbourne and Riga do not scare Alex. He acknowledges the role of in-person interaction and plans to visit Latvia in October for some face-to-face time and strategic brain-storming with Edurio.
However, he happily reveals that modern communication technology makes distance less and less relevant these days. He does not see his location in Asia-Pacific as an impediment, but possibly even as an advantage for potential market access.
Edurio operates in a large and growing market, and I see great potential for the company to be successful not only in Europe, but internationally as well.
The team has been also recognized by Emerge Education, a London-based accelerator focusing exclusively on edtech. The team is 2 months through the program, which gave them access to many leading education experts from Coursera, Edmodo, Oxford University Press,Eton College, Pearson and others. This has also sparked a number of conversations about partnerships and pilots.
Besides the usual a buffet of mentors that are spreading their airtime across all teams, Emerge Education matches startups with dedicated mentors who work with them more closely, receiving equity shares in return.
Edurio is regularly mentored by Dan Sandhu (CEO of Digital Assess) and James Weatherill (Chief Commercial Officer at Arbor Education Partners). Ernests refers to them as people with extremely deep insights into growing an Edtech business all the way from data management, user interface and marketing channels to business strategy and funding.
Meanwhile, the sales pipeline keeps growing. The initial agreements with individual schools have spurred interest from school networks and municipalities in Latvia and the UK. The startup is now focusing on English-speaking countries, though still open for other collaboration opportunities.
