2023 in EdTech — and the Year Ahead

by Liam Pisano

As a former research analyst, I used to dread the first two weeks of January. For me, it meant a steady influx of “year in review” industry reports from wall street banks that invariably had a similar tone, some more self serving than others, but needed to be accounted for from a data collection standpoint. At times it was mind numbing, but I always made sure to call whoever it was that compiled the report, as it seemed like an equally thankless task (the readership was very unclear), albeit one that paid handsomely.

I remember the conversations well. Primarily because whoever it was that answered the phone always appreciated that I was interested in the same thing that they were tasked to produce a ridiculous amount of literature on. And given they were writing about the public markets, that literature was often obsolete in a matter of weeks. Being an industry geek is not a surefire path to building a legion of fanboys.

But I did learn that people liked to talk about themselves and what they do. Back then it was telecommunications, today, for me, it is education technology. So on to the best and the brightest of 2024 predictions and 2023 rehash that we’ve seen published. Normally we focus on original content here, but we’re of the mindset that finely tuned curation every once in a while isn’t a bad thing.

In the interest of self-promotion, we highly recommend reading this article from TechCrunch on why it’s a good time to invest in early stage edtech.

Tyton Partners, as always, puts together a great summary of the capital markets and M&A activity in edtech in this summary. They also do a great job of predicting the future of higher ed, or at least 2024, in this article.

For some commentary on what went on across the pond in Europe in edtech in 2023, please read the work of our friends at Brighteye Ventures.

As a father of an 11 year old and a 7 year old, I loved this piece by EdWeek on what high school will be learning in 2033. And I was dreading calculus…silly me.

We hear from K-12 teachers themselves on what 2024 for their own classrooms in this blog post from Scribbles Software.

Just in case you haven’t got enough of generative AI, we offer this piece on artificial intelligence trends that we should expect to see develop in 2024.

Looking to get out of the office, or your basement, and out to an edtech focused conference this year? The folks at Reach Capital put this together to help you with your travel plans.

For a solid look back at the M&A transactions that made 2023 slightly bearable to live through, take a look at Raymond James education technology February newsletter.

The Harvard Business Review takes a look at trends that they believe will shape the workplace in 2024. While a bit out of scope when it comes to actual trends in technology, it’s a certain take on an uncertain topic these days.

Finally, we come back to Matt Tower at ETCH. We loved his comprehensive look at all things edtech, his enthusiasm and his growing base of knowledge on both public and private markets. Take a look, subscribe, and know that this is not a paid advertisement, we just really like his writing.