The edtech startup market is booming. Estimates of total investment in early stage companies in 2014 have gone a high as $2.3B. But not all edtech startup opportunities are in the classroom or the school/college enterprise network. There's a lot of activity swirling around student populations and the families that support them.
Two new startups in San Francisco's 500 Startups accelerator are playing in this "ancillary edtech market." Kidzjet wants to be the platform for transportation needs serving schools, afterschool programs and parent groups. Cheddar Up is focusing on schools and parents to provide a way to collect and track online all the current cash or check payments that accompany the K-12 school experience. While at the back end of that "child development cycle" in our home, it's a solution I've thought about often over the last 12+ years.
There's a lot of possibilities in this "just outside the school door" market. Best of all, it's a consumer market and killer apps don't have to master the intricacies of selling to formal education institutions -- especially in the public sector!
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Michael Meotti is the Principal of Ed Policy Group and formerly served as CT Commissioner of Higher Education.
