The First Crack of EdTech 2.0: The EdTech Hype Bubble of 2011-2013

Mark November 2013 as the first crack of the current 2011-2013 EdTech Hype Bubble.  In the same 30 day span that saw Chegg chip away at its eggshell with an amended S-1 filing in its eventual emergence as a public company, Chegg’s co-founder Osman Rashid was dismissed from his follow-up act Kno as its financial investors turned it over to strategic investor Intel for “pennies on the dollar”.  This now brings to three the number of casualties amongst the current, over-hyped Silicon Valley EdTech Darlings. 
Regular correspondents of Educated Ventures will be familiar with my highlighting of the “Seven Sisters” of EdTech (originally just “Five Horseman” before the addition of two MOOCs), but for new readers, there are seven start-ups which have each raised capital from at least two of the top decile returning venture funds: Grockit (Benchmark / Atlas); Knewton (Accel / Bessemer); 2U (Bessemer / Highland / Redpoint); Edmodo (Benchmark / Greylock / NEA); Altius Education (Charles River Ventures / Spark); Coursera (KPCB / NEA); and Udacity (CRV / Andressen). More...