Startups are doing things that 15 years ago would’ve never seemed possible. You can summon a car right to your feet like some sort of cyberkinetic magician. You can rent out the spare room with all cat posters to man-bun endorsing travelers. And in possibly the most groundbreaking innovation of all, you can now send “Yo” a bunch of times to some people who can then send “Yo” back. But in all seriousness, one of the areas where technology is making the most impact is education.
It seems like every day a new ed-tech company is popping up and for good reason. Never before have we been able to understand and iterate on how people learn and teach. According to Crunchbase, Venture Capitalists have invested over $175M this quarter alone in the education technology sector, and this influx of capital shows no sign of stopping.
While Silicon Valley often gets all the press, fortunately, some of the most inventive ed-tech companies are out on the east coast. What’s even better is that they’re all looking to hire people just like you.
We’ve put together a list of the top 10 NYC ed-tech startups who are hiring for non-technical roles.
1. Knewton -- Brave Knew World
Why they’re awesome: When we were kids, we were all taught by the same teacher, read the same books (usually with doodles still left in the margins like ancient hieroglyphics), and worst of all were expected to learn at the same pace. If you couldn’t keep up, tough luck, you were pushed through anyway like a McNugget leaving a conveyor belt. Knewton’s turning that model upside down with its adaptive learning technology. Basically Knewton adapts to how you learn, and is able to adjust what problems you see based on your strengths and weaknesses. It recognizes an essential fact about education, that we all learn at different speeds, and creates personalized regimens to maximize each individual student’s success.
Who: Jose Ferreria, a former executive over at learning behemoth Kaplan Inc.
Funding: $105M in total funding
How do you infiltrate? Ever wanted to know what it’s like to be a Product Manager? Check out Knewton’s careers page!
Size: ~175 employees
2. Skillshare -- The Class Menagerie
Why they’re awesome:
Skillshare is like that one friend you have who can show you how to do ANYTHING. One minute he’s making Origami napkins, the next minute he’s fixing the toilet. “Oh and did I mention I play piano too...with my feet?” Skillshare’s a learning community where creators get to teach online classes to a community of 850,000 students. For $9.99 a month you can take online classes like: Zine Creation, Font Design, After Effects, Improv, Underwater basketweaving, Balancing Like 9 Plates on Your Head, Time Travel, Wikipedia Vandalism, and Christopher Walken Impersonations. Check it out, you might even learn a skill or two!
Who: Michael Karnjanaprakorn, former product lead at Hot Potato, a NY-based startup that was acquired by Facebook.
Funding: $10.8M in total funding
How do you infiltrate? Currently hiring for: Community Associates, Content Managers, and Marketing folks.
Size: ~55 employees
3. Noodle -- Noo Kids on the Block
Why they’re awesome: Do you remember those college guide books with the corny names that your parents made you buy your junior year of high school? All you wanted to do was play GameCube and there you were comparing dining halls, student to teacher ratios, and campus theft rates in a book that makes Ulysses look slim. Noodle’s like that book but on the internet and 1000 times easier to use. Basically it allows folks to compare and contrast colleges, law schools, high schools, MBA programs, internships, you name it, all within an intuitive and easy to use platform. It’s the go to tool for anyone looking to make an informed decision before dropping serious dough on a degree.
Who: John Katzman, founder of Princeton Review and 2U.
Funding: No info on funding but acquired online learning platform Lore during March 2013
How do you infiltrate? Lots of account strategist, sales, recruiter, and editorial roles available.
Size: ~83 employees
4. Flocabulary -- Kanye Test
Why they’re awesome: Gonna spit some lines about a site. It’s pretty cool and rather tight. Teach kids common core lesson plans. Learn math, reading, science like the back of their hands. Best part is it’s not in a book. It’s real hip-hop, chorus, bridge, and hook. Educational rap used by 20,000 schools. Improving test results, so check it out fools!
Who: Founded by Alex Rappaport and Blake Harrison.
Funding: Currently no information on the web regarding funding, though they’ve been going strong since 2003
How to infiltrate: Fulfillment Specialist, Sales Dev Coordinator, Account Exec, Sales Exec. Whatever your interest and background there’s room for you at Flocabulary!
Size: ~26 employees
5. Voxy -- Found in Translation
Why they’re awesome: Voxy’s the most downloaded education app in 20 countries around the world and shows no sign of slowing down. They’ve created an English learning platform that adapts as the speaker masters the language. That way non-english speakers can learn at whatever speed they’re comfortable with. What’s even cooler is that the lesson plans actually have immediate real world benefits. You can learn how to speak English while exploring themes related to daily activities, business, travel, and a ton more (rumor has it there’s a whole lesson block centered around passive aggressively reminding your roommate to pay his rent). In addition to the self-guided learning, Voxy also has individual as well as group classes led by a real teacher who is also a human. The best part is, Voxy tracks your progress down to a granular level, so you can see precisely how you’re improving month to month. With Voxy you can learn English how it was meant to be learned: Reading off your smartphone in a coffee shop.
Who: Co-founders Gregg Carey and Paul Gollash.
Funding: $18.8M in total funding
How to infiltrate? We advise fellow language learning enthusiasts to send over their resumes.
Size: ~51 employees
6. Coursehorse -- Never Look One in the Mouth
Why they’re awesome: How many times have you wanted to take a Yoga/Cooking/Art class only to back out because you don’t know where to start? Coursehorse gallops to the rescue by allowing people to compare different local classes and pick the ones best suited to their experience levels. You can filter by type, price range, age group, and even location. We think they’re way better than their competitors Courseflamingo and Coursearmadillo too.
Who: Coursehonchos, Nihal Parthasarathi and Katie Kapler
Funding: $1.8M in total funding
How do you infiltrate? CourseHorse is currently hiring Operations Interns, Customer Service Ambassadors, and Email Marketing Specialists! Check them out!
Size: ~22 employees
7. TeachBoost -- Teacherception
Why they’re awesome: TeachBoost teaches the teachers who teach how to be better at teaching. It’s basically a teacher inside a Russian Nesting Doll, inside a Turducken, inside Inception, inside one of Xzibit’s “Pimp my Ride” cars. TeachBoost is a B2B ed-tech platform that analyzes teachers’ metrics and delivers actionable insights into how they can improve. It turns each school district into a fast-paced, highly iterative mini-startup. With TeachBoost, entire school districts can learn from their mistakes and double down on their successes.
Who: The Teach Bros are: Jason DeRoner, Andrew Gioia and Mike Gioia
Funding: $1.5M in total funding
How to infiltrate? Don’t have a careers page right now but feel free to e-mail them and let them know you’re interested.
Size: ~8 employees
8. Newsela -- Not At All Like Nutella
Why they’re awesome:
Newsela is like the tl;dr version of news articles but for kids. According to Crunchbase, there are 20 million students in the US who will never read at a college level. Even more staggering are the 90 million Americans who are reading at a basic or lower levels of comprehension. Newsela is killing two birds with one stone by tackling literacy improvement while simultaneously educating kids about current events. They basically take current articles from places like the Los Angeles Times and Scientific American and rewrite them according to different reading levels. “Obama Removes Cuba from the List of State Sponsors of Terrorism” which is a real article from the Washington Post, gets rewritten for tenth graders as “President Obama Says He Doesn’t Believe Cuba Is Supporting Terrorism.” The same article gets rewritten for fourth graders as “President Obama Wants to Be Friendly to Cuba but Not Everyone Agrees.” Newsela then allows educators to create Common Core-ready lesson plans based on the articles and Newsela quizzes.
Who: Co-founders Matthew Gross and Dan Cogan-Drew
Funding: $7.2 M in total funding
How to infiltrate? Apply to be a Client Sales and Service Rep, a Marketing Manager, or a Manager of Educator Outreach!
Size: ~42 employees
9. Grovo -- Gro Your Workplace Productivity
Why they’re awesome: Grovo’s filling the digital productivity pothole with concrete...skills! According to their website, the fact that workers are lacking the digital familiarity necessary to excel in today’s workforce accounts for $1.3 Trillion dollars in productivity loss. What’s even crazier is that 58% of the computer enabled workforce doesn’t feel competent with the digital tools at their companies. Grovo decided to fix all that by teaching these digital skills in 60 second video chunks. Don’t know how to mail merge? Grovo. Unsure how to connect your Google Analytics to WordPress? Grovo. Want to finally start using Big Boy Excel? Grovo. A Grovo enabled company has more productive workers who ultimately contribute to a more productive company.
Who: Co-founders Jeff Fernandez and Surag Mungekar joined forces to improve workplace productivity.
Funding: $22M in total funding
How to infiltrate? Lots of openings for an Account Manager, Client Success Manager, Talent Coordinator, and much more!
Size: ~150 employees
10. Socratic -- The Internet Ate My Homework
Why they’re awesome:
You remember when your 9th grade algebra teacher gave you a zero for copying someone’s homework? Well turns out he really was as big of a jerk as you thought. Socratic is basically turning the internet into a late night, Red Bull fueled study sesh. Here students can post homework or test problems they’re having trouble with and teaching assistants, tutors, and even other students can contribute step by step answers. It’s your homework, crowd sourced!
Who: Christopher Pedregal, who previously co-founded Apture, and Shreyans Bhansali, the former VP of Engineering at Venmo.
Funding: $7.5 M in total funding
How to infiltrate? Check out the Marketing Manager role and help “get Socratic into the hands of students and teachers everywhere.”
Size: ~6 employees
If you’re a recent graduate who's interested in the crossroads of technology and education, this list serves as a great jumping off point. These startups, many of which are at completely different stages and following unique missions, all share the same passion for making learning better.
We’re helping to grow the teams of some companies on this list as well as a ton that aren’t. If you’ve ever been curious or want to learn more about ed-tech startups, check out Planted.