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I’ve updated the spreadsheet where I’m tracking on this year's ed-tech investment. Here are JSON files for startup funding (broken down by investors), acquisitions, and mergers.

It’s only been a month since I reviewed Q1 2015’s ed-tech investment data, but with the acquisition of Lynda.com by LinkedIn this month, I thought all this was worth revisiting – particularly since the crack reporters at Pando wondered if that would “kill the ed tech space.”

For what it’s worth – according to my record-keeping at least, investment was up just slightly in April over March. (But both are down from January and February when massive investments in Lynda.com ($186 million), SoFi ($200 million), and 17zuoye ($100 million) certainly skewed the numbers).

Perhaps the most interesting story to watch this year is the growing number of acquisitions – big deals not just in terms of the dollar figures but in terms of the brands involved. In April, LinkedIn bought Lynda.com for $1,500,000,000, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt paid $575,000,000 for most of Scholastic’s ed-tech business. These are the largest acquisitions of the year, topping Rakuten's acquisition of Overdrive for $410,000,000 and Pluralsight's acquisition of Code School for $36,000,000.

Among 2015’s Biggest Ed-Tech Investments So Far:

  1. Social Finance ($200,000,000)
  2. Lynda.com ($186,000,000)
  3. 17zuoye ($100,000,000)
  4. Yuantiku ($60,000,000)
  5. NetDragon Education ($52,500,000)
  6. Genshuixue ($50,000,000)
  7. Instructure ($40,000,000)
  8. FiftyThree ($30,000,000)
  9. GuideSpark ($22,200,000)
  10. XueXiBao ($20,000,000)

(As you can see half of the top funding rounds so far this year have gone to Chinese online education companies.)

Among 2015’s Most Active Investors So Far:

  1. Kapor Capital
  2. 500 Startups
  3. Deborah Quazzo
  4. Great Oaks Ventures
  5. New Schools Venture Fund

Download the data, and devise your own analysis. The GitHub repository is here.

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Audrey Watters


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