Edtech Asia Issue #5
🇮🇳 Google Startups Accelerator Program India is OPEN | 🇭🇰 HongKong is experiencing a talent shortage | 🌍 Edtech VC is in major depression this Q1 2023
Hello there! Since we just ended Q1 2023, reports are coming up! 🧠 My brain gets its unusual food and heavy training from these reports. I hope you’ll enjoy these numbers, predictions, and forecasts with a mix of some huge funding rounds from Asia unicorns and continuous layoffs from the same companies. It’s been a ride 🎢 in the first week of April. Let me know if you enjoyed this issue (also if you don’t)! You may email me at 💌 hey@thefutureofeducation.xyz
Thank you very much and let’s get started with the biggest news in Edtech Asia!
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TL;DR
Google Startups Accelerator Program India is now open! 🇮🇳
US universities drop SAT eligibility criteria for admissions 🇮🇳 🇺🇸
Hong Kong is experiencing a talent shortage—with a report from Glints 🇭🇰
Can Edtech firms revolutionize Singapore’s competitive mindset? 🇸🇬
BYJU raises $700M and is now valued at $22B; while some of its money was designated to pay debts 🇮🇳
UpGrad scoops $36.4M from internal rounds and introduces ChatGPT fundamentals 🇮🇳
Prep raises $1M 🇻🇳
Layoffs happened to Harappa (UpGrad-acquired) and Unacademy with 12% of the workforce 🇮🇳
Edtech VC is in major depression this Q1 2023 🌎
Edtech Market to reach $300 Billion by 2033 🌍
US Education market size to surpass $1.5 Trillion by 2028 🇺🇸
How the world will look in 2050? 🌏
AI could replace the equivalent of 300 Million Jobs 🤖
📰 Hottest News
Join Batch 7 of the Google Startups Accelerator in India! Is your ed-tech startup focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)? Google is looking to support startups that are focused on utilizing these two tech sectors. As of now, 130 startups accelerated through this initiative by Google. Submit your application by April 23. 🇮🇳
80% of US universities drop SAT eligibility criteria for admissions; how will it impact Indian students? Last year, 1.8 Million Indian students were forecasted to study abroad by 2024. Also, Indian students who want to study abroad doubled from 11.8% to 21%. US universities dropping SAT could spike up these numbers. 🇮🇳 🇺🇸
With a talent shortage, Hong Kong employers now rely heavily on high-performing teams in neighboring Asian countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Glints provided data with findings that Hong Kong's salary is 2x-3x higher than their neighboring countries. Apart from this, SouthEast Asia Talent Pool is growing and there is potential to stabilize salary expectations across SEA. 🇭🇰
Can Edtech Firms Revolutionize Singapore’s Competitive Mindset? Singapore is known for its competitive education landscape and has been a source of pride and controversy. Its education system relies heavily on test scores starting from primary school. This has been a huge discussion for Singapore education as to how we see exams changed due to the rise of AI. How can Singapore adapt to this global education change? 🇸🇬
FUNDINGS
Indian unicorns are raising huge amounts coming from internal rounds and West Asia.
BYJU raises $700M and is now valued at $22B. The funding was led by West Asia’s sovereign wealth funds and private equity companies. However, a portion of the money raised has been designated to pay for existing debts. 🇮🇳
UpGrad scoops $36.4m from existing investors. Part of it is the $25 Million investment from its co-founder himself, and $9.8M from Temasek, while other minorities completed the balance. While this is happening, UpGrad introduces ChatGPT fundamentals to help upskill the workforce. 🇮🇳
Prep raises $1M. This Vietnamese edtech firm is an online learning platform that specializes in standardized language test preparation. They will use the funds to accelerate product development and business activities. FYI, high-quality standardized test prep services are a huge deal in Vietnam which makes the language learning market seems to have massive potential with an estimated market size of $2.1 Billion. 🇻🇳
LAYOFFS
UpGrad Harappa reduces its employment. Last January 2023, Harappa layoffs about 40% of its workforce. Today, it layoffs 60 of its staff. This ed-tech startup has been one of the long lines to layoffs 7,000 staff in the previous months. 🇮🇳
Unacademy slashes another 12% of jobs. In just over 4 months, Unacademy cut down 350 roles. 🇮🇳
GLOBAL NEWS
Edtech is in major depression in VC funding this Q1 2023. EdTech VC is down 80% in Q1 2022 and 83% on record high 2021. $1.1B of Venture Capital for Q1 2023. It’s like we’re going back to 2016!
The notable rounds from 5 edtech startups who raised $50M and up already counted for over 1/3 of the funding quarter. Education outsiders who joined last 2020-22 are leaving and moving to the next hype cycle from Web3 to Generative AI. HolonIQ added, “EdTech attracted 15 'Mega Rounds' (> $100M) in 2019, 30 in 2020, 53 in 2021, and 20 in 2022. Q1 2023 was the first quarter for many years without an EdTech 'Mega Round' and it's possible EdTech won't see another for some time to come.” 🌎
Meanwhile, Edtech Market is expected to reach $300 Billion by 2033 from $130 Billion in 2022. You may buy and download the full report from Digital Journal to see what are the key factors and key players that affect the growth. 🌍
The US education market size is predicted to surpass $1.5 trillion by 2028, according to Vantage Market Research. Factors driving this growth include an increasing student population and rising investments in education technology, along with government initiatives supporting education. Read more to learn the top players, trends, and report findings. 🇺🇸
How the world will look in 2050? Some of the predicted changes include:
advances in technology, such as self-driving cars and AI assistants,
increased urbanization and infrastructure development,
shifts in demographics, such as an aging population and changes in migration patterns, and
potential environmental challenges, such as climate change and resource scarcity
Remember, these are just predictions. They are assumptions about what could have happened to humanity in the next decades, and they may change based on future events and developments.
AI could replace the equivalent of 300 million jobs. - a report by investment bank Goldman Sachs says. The report also predicted that AI could replace a quarter of work tasks in the US & Europe, and it could increase total goods and services production by 7% globally. This could also mean new jobs and a productivity boom in the workforce.
RESOURCES
Don’t have enough time to finish watching a long-form Youtube video? Ask Chat Youtube to summarize the whole video for you through chat.
Listen to Edtech Lab’s podcast as they unleash the emerging markets in Edtech in SEA and East Africa.
Thank you for reading! If you find something useful that isn’t here, feel free to send it over to hey@thefutureofeducation.xyz so I can add it here.
Until our next issue,