I don’t often get to write these words, but there is a new must-read blog post on educational technology by a venture capitalist. Rethink Education’s Matt Greenfield argues that there is no generalized bubble in ed tech investment; rather, the problem is that the venture community has a habit of systematically betting on the wrong […]
Venture capital
Lessons from the Boundless Copyright Infringement Suit
On December 17th, the Boundless OER-based textbook startup issued a press release describing the settlement they had reached with Pearson, Cengage, and Macmillan in the lawsuit those three companies had filed against the company. (Full disclosure: Pearson has been a client of MindWires Consulting.) Actually, a lot of the press release wasn’t really about the […]
Layoffs at Desire2Learn: Significant or not?
In a little-reported event the week of Thanksgiving, Desire2Learn let go 28 employees. The only public report I’m aware of comes from The Record out of Desire2Learn’s hometown of Kitchener, Ontario in Canada. E-learning company Desire2Learn has cut about 25 workers from its product development department. Virginia Jamieson, spokesperson for the Kitchener-based company, said nine […]
We’re from the Valley and We’re Here to Help
The other week I had the pleasure of attending the annual GSV Advisors Education Innovation Summit in Scottsdale. For those who aren’t aware, the main purpose of the event is to help ed tech startups and investors find each other. After last year’s summit, I wrote a post called “What Are Ed Tech Entrepreneurs Good […]
Desire2Learn Raises $80 Million in First-Time Venture Capital Funding
Desire2Learn has been around since 1999, and John Baker, CEO and founder of the company, has made it a point of pride that the company has grown to over 500 employees without external funding. From a financial perspective, however, the Canadian company just reversed its long-standing approach and raised $80 million in venture capital (VC) […]
SunGard HE and Blackboard Acquisitions: Compare and Contrast
UPDATE: In the section on ‘Cash Cow vs. Growth Potential’, my choice of words could have caused misunderstanding. I did not mean to equate Operating Income with Cash Flow, and my choice of the word ‘cash’ in this section should really have been ‘income’, as my analysis was obviously based on Operating Income. I have […]