According to edtech investors, what is the purpose of education?
The EdTech Investors’ Agenda
In recent years, EdTech has transformed from a specialised sector into a multi-billion global industry. While traditionally framed as a way to improve learning, EdTech is increasingly shaped by financial actors—investors, venture capital firms, and private equity funds and a splash of charisma marketing and the advantage of discursive closure. These entities view education not as a joint issue to grow and nurture, but as a market opportunity, a scalable business, and a rich source of data.
Understanding EdTech through the lens of its investors offers critical insight into how education is being reshaped—often in ways that prioritise profit over pedagogy. This post examines how investors conceptualise education, emphasising their focus on economic return, personalised learning at scale, data extraction, and monopolistic expansion.
Education as a Market Opportunity
At its core, the EdTech sector is viewed by investors as a market ripe for disruption, akin to how fintech revolutionised banking. GSV Ventures, a major EdTech investor, explicitly compares education to e-commerce, advocating for its transformation into a Netflix-style subscription model (Davies et al., 2021).
Venture capital firms pour billions into EdTech unicorns (companies valued at over $1 billion) under the assumption that the future of learning will be digital-first, direct-to-consumer (DTC), and monetised through long-term revenue streams. The traditional business-to-business (B2B) model, where schools or governments procure educational services, is seen as outdated and slow-moving. Instead, companies like Byju’s, edX and Duolingo bypass institutions, selling directly to learners through paid subscriptions and freemium models.
HolonIQ, an education market intelligence firm, reported that global EdTech venture capital investment skyrocketed from $500 million in 2010 to over $20 billion in 2021, fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic’s shift toward online learning (HolonIQ, 2022). The key takeaway? Investors don’t just see education as a social good; they see it as a financial asset with exponential growth potential.
Education as a Scalable Ecosystem
Scale is everything. Investors seek EdTech companies with the potential for rapid global expansion, monopolising markets and consolidating education services. Companies like Byju’s exemplify this strategy, acquiring smaller EdTech firms and integrating them into a unified platform (Roy, 2022). Byju’s acquired platforms in test preparation, higher education, and professional upskilling, aiming to own the entire learning lifecycle from childhood to adulthood (‘Pre-K to Gray’). This was also it’s downfall as it felt the pressure of scaling up rapidly for its Private Equity investors.
This monopolistic tendency is evident in how EdTech firms operate like Big Tech giants. Companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have long had a stake in education, but now, education-first companies are adopting similar strategies. Byju’s reliance on AWS for cloud computing infrastructure mirrors how major tech companies scale their operations globally.
Investors prefer platform-based business models because they can continuously introduce new features, integrate with other services, and extract value from user data (Kerssens & van Dijck, 2021). This is why many EdTech companies now refer to themselves as “learning ecosystems”—a term that suggests openness but often means market domination.
Education as a Data Extraction
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of EdTech’s rise is its focus on data extraction and monetisation. Investors recognise that the true value of digital learning platforms isn’t just in course sales or subscriptions—it’s in the data.
Every interaction a student has with an EdTech platform—whether answering a quiz, watching a video, or engaging in discussion forums—generates valuable behavioral data ie. data rent. This data rent can be used in multiple ways:
- Personalised Learning Algorithms: AI-driven platforms adjust learning experiences based on student performance.
- Market Intelligence: Companies analyse data to develop new products and predict market trends.
- Advertising & Monetisation: Some EdTech firms explore partnerships with corporations eager to access user insights (Sadowski, 2020).
Byju’s tool a step further with its AI Lab in London, hiring ex-Facebook executives to build sophisticated machine learning models that personalise education while extracting data rent (Byju’s, 2021). This trend raises ethical concerns: Who controls student data? How is it used? And does it benefit learners, or just investors?
Who Controls the Future of Education?
The growing dominance of EdTech investors means they are now powerful brokers shaping the future of education. Their investment decisions determine which products exist, which companies succeed, and what learning experiences become normalised.
A key distinction must be made between EdTech-specific investors (such as GSV Ventures and Owl Ventures) and general technology investors (such as SoftBank and Tiger Global Management). The former are deeply embedded in education discourse, actively promoting visions of “modernised learning” through reports, events, and strategic influence. The latter are more concerned with financial return than educational outcomes, investing in EdTech startups only when they show strong revenue potential (Davies et al., 2021).
Regardless of their motivation, investors wield enormous influence over education systems. Unlike governments or public institutions, their priorities are not guided by educational research, student well-being, or equity concerns—they are guided by return on investment (ROI).
The Scary Truth
EdTech investment has undoubtedly driven innovation and expanded access to digital learning tools, but analysing who has invested in education was eye opening to me. Last week, I spoke about Toddle, our new Learning Management System which we implemented a year ago. I was shocked to see that it had 19 investors and raised $20m through private equity. I wonder if our school knew this before it agreed to a 5 year contract or if we would have cared? Perhaps it is because it received so much funding through PE that it stood out from it’s competitors (we saw 7 other pitches in total).
It needs to be said that it is not only EdTech companies that are PE backed. Bricks and Mortar schools are also heavily backed by private investors and is the foundation of how elite UK private schools are expanding all over the world. This is highly noticeable in a bricks and mortar school and parents and teachers are well aware that the school needs to make money to survive. However, with EdTech companies it is far less noticeable and easier for these brands to espouse values and mission statements without parents and educators questioning who is backing them.
Navigating the Future of Big EdTech
EdTech’s future is being shaped not just by educators or policymakers, but by financial power brokers who view learning as a market to dominate, a data source to monetise, and a scalable business to expand globally. While investment fuels innovation, it also risks prioritising profit over pedagogy, monopolisation over accessibility, and surveillance over student well-being. I fear that EdTech companies backed by PE investors will only be as good as the limited knowledge of the investors.
To ensure that education remains equitable, ethical, and student-centered, it is essential to challenge the unchecked power of EdTech investors. The future of learning should not be dictated solely by the financial interests of venture capitalists—but by the needs of learners, teachers, and society at large.
References
- Davies, H., Eynon, R., & Komljenovic, J. (2021). Education Data Futures. University of Edinburgh.
- Williamson, B. (2022). Big EdTech. Learning, Media and Technology, 47(2), 157-162.
- HolonIQ. (2022). Global EdTech Venture Capital Report – Full Year 2021.
- Komljenovic, J. (2021). The Rise of Education Rentiers: Digital Platforms, Digital Data and Rents. Learning, Media and Technology, 46(3), 320-332.
- Sadowski, J. (2020). The Internet of Landlords: Digital Platforms and New Mechanisms of Rentier Capitalism. Antipode, 52(2), 562-580.
- Kerssens, N., & van Dijck, J. (2021). The Platformization of Primary Education in the Netherlands. Learning, Media & Technology, 46(3), 250–263.
Nishel,
I like the way you have used the course concepts to frame the discussion on the purposes of Education as advanced by Edtech investors, and the discursive strategies they indicate. Specifically, you use relevant themes to signpost the reader to the espoused mechanics of the Edtech sector, for example; education as a market opportunity, as a scalable system, as data extraction, who controls the future of Education, the Scary truth, and finally navigating the future of BigTech. Just to indicate that, the last theme of navigating the future of Edtech is where we move next in this course.
Good that you signpost the listener to the blog central focus- It is always a good idea to introduce/orient the reader to what you intend to present in the blog post, especially connecting with the week’s.. guiding/ key question. Which you do very well.
Indeed Edtech and BigTech promote a narrative of outdated education, requiring investment and disruption, moreover, Edtech investors view the purpose of education through imagining and re-imagining the way children learn, unlearn, relearn in the future, and creating a life-long value through platform ecologies. Particularly, they promote normative visions of the future of education, while also viewing education as an investiment opportunity similar to e-commerce.
Your blog statement that “the traditional business-to-business (B2B) model, where schools or governments procure educational services, is seen as outdated and slow-moving. Instead, companies like Byju’s, edX and Duolingo bypass institutions, selling directly to learners through paid subscriptions and freemium models”.….greatly resonates with Williamson (2019) concept of “shadow powers”, bypassing gate keepers and shaping what happens in schools, with little involvement of official governance or regulatory agencies. This leads to questions regarding who is regulating the innovations advanced and promoted by the EdTech Sector? What are the risks and threats to the quality and purposes of education when EdTech Investors bypass regulators and teachers?
While endeared by the espoused visions and purposes of education advanced by EdTech Investors, including benevolent capitalism, I hold the opinion that EdTech Investors are actors for good, however, I also still struggle with questions regarding the embedded risks, threats and opportunities underlying the shadow powers of EdTech investors.
Further the fundamental tensions between market imperatives, returns on investments and educational values remain unresolved. As the influence of edtech investors grows, it will become increasingly more important to critically examine their impact on educational values, practices, and outcomes.
There is an existential threat and challenge as to whether what Edtech Investors fund, promote and innovate is what schools need, and who is regulating the innovations advanced and promoted by the EdTech Sector?
As we look towards the future, one of the solutions that has been advanced to address some of these risks and threats is deliberative information sharing about EdTech provisions, opportunities, threats, risks) between and among parents, learners, teachers and researchers, to facilitate consciousness and creative critical decisions about Edtech.