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TechCrunch

Numerade lands $100M valuation for short-form STEM videos

Edtech entrepreneurs are using their moment in the sun to rethink the structures and impact of nearly every aspect of modern-day learning, from the art of testing to the reality of information retention. Yet, the most popular product up for grabs may just be a seemingly simple one: the almighty tutoring session. Numerade, an edtech founded in 2018, just had its take on scalable, high-quality tutoring sessions valued at $100 million.

Numerade sells subscriptions to short-form videos that explain how certain equations and experiments work, and then uses an algorithm to make those explainers better suited to a learner’s comprehension style. Per CEO and co-founder Nhon Ma, the startup’s focus on asynchronous, contextualized content will make it easier to scale high-quality tutoring at an affordable price. Read more.

TechCrunch

Daylight raises millions to build a digital banking platform ‘designed for and by’ the LGBTQ+ community

Over the past year, there has been a surge of newly formed digital banks aimed at specific demographics. The banks in nearly all cases are trying to meet the needs of certain populations that they believe are feeling left out or underserved by traditional financial institutions.

The latest such neobank to emerge is New York-based Daylight, which describes itself as the first LGBTQ+ digital banking platform in the United States. (There is a digital bank in Brazil with a similar mission called Pride Bank).

Founded by LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs Rob Curtis (CEO), Billie Simmons, a trans woman (COO) and Paul Barnes Hoggett (CTO), Daylight is announcing today that it has secured $5 million in a seed funding round. Kapor Capital and Precursor Capital co-led the round, which included participation from Anthemis Group, Clocktower, Financial Venture Studio and Citi. Read more.

Baltimore Business Journal

Emocha Health raises $6M Series A to fuel expansion of team, revenue

Baltimore digital health company emocha Health has closed a $6.2 million round of Series A funding and is looking to build on the momentum of a strong year of growth.

The oversubscribed round was led by Tennessee-based Claritas Health Ventures. Other participating investors included Healthworx, the innovation and investment arm of regional health insurer CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, Kapor Capital and PTX Capital. Sebastian Seiguer, CEO of emocha, said his company will use the new funds to significantly grow its team and customer base, especially among health insurers and transplant centers, and build on the success it saw throughout 2020. Read more.

TechCrunch

Kahoot acquires Clever, the US-based edtech portal, for up to $500M

Kahoot, the popular Oslo-based edtech company that has built a big business out of gamifiying education and creating a platform for users to build their own learning games, is making an acquisition to double down on K-12 education and its opportunities to grow in the U.S. It is acquiring Clever, a startup that has built a single sign-on portal for educators, students and their families to build and engage in digital learning classrooms, currently used by about 65% of all U.S. K-12 schools. Kahoot said that the deal — coming in a combination of cash and shares — gives Clever an enterprise value of between $435 million and $500 million, dependent on meeting certain performance milestones. Read more.