All parents want only the best for their children – solid education, supporting environment, exciting future career prospects, and useful edtech tools that will help them and their children achieve all of the above. With digitalization taking over, and the pandemic dictating the new reality, it is hard to find something that will correspond to the global trends but also fit in with local educational system standards.
We have come prepared to save you time and look for such innovative edtech solutions no longer. Here we present the mapping of Southeast European startups in edtech that will help your kid or their school better prepare for a new school year.
Bulgaria
Name: Ucha.se and Eduboom
Founders: Darin Madzharov, Nikolay Zheynov (2012)
Focus: online tutoring
Total funding: around €415K (seed)
Ucha.se is an edtech platform with a mission to inspire kids in Bulgaria to learn. The company offers video lessons and tests to Bulgarian students of all grades according to the country’s public school system. Currently, more than 60% of Bulgarian schools are subscribed to the platform. In 2020, Ucha.se expanded internationally with the multilingual version Eduboom, now available in Romania, Italy, and Spain.
Check out also The Recursive podcast episode with the co-founder and CEO of the company Darin Madzharov.
Name: Shkolo.bg
Founders: Miroslav Dzhokanov, Lyubomir Vanyov, Simeon Predov, Alexander Stoyanov (2016)
Focus: school management software
Total funding: N/A
Shkolo is a software solution that eliminates the use of paper gradebooks in Bulgarian schools and provides them with the e-version instead. The company optimizes the back-end and administrative processes of schools, allowing teachers conduct online lessons, students check their grades and parents keep track of extracurricular activities their children participate in.
The company has become the leading platform for digitalization of education in Bulgaria which led to the use of e-diaries in all schools in the country starting Fall 2022.
Name: MindHub
Founders: Polly Yankova (2015)
Focus: coding
Total funding: N/A
MindHub is an IT platform for teaching programming to children ages 6 to 18. Based on gamification, the company offers ready-made courses with a franchise model that has already created a network of coding schools.
Romania
Name: Kinderpedia
Founders: Evelina Necula, Daniel Rogoz (2014)
Focus: school management software
Total funding: around €3.6M
Kinderpedia is a communication and school management SaaS platform that optimizes administrative processes in schools and kindergartens in Romania and abroad. The platform offers full virtual classroom functionalities, including gradebook, video teaching, attendance check, and progress reports.
Name: Brio
Founders: Dragos Iliescu (2016)
Focus: student performance evaluation
Total funding: around €1.4M (seed)
Brio is an online educational testing platform for Romanian students of all grades. The platform evaluates educational performance of students by offering tests approved by the Romanian Ministry of Education, in fields like Mathematics, History, Literacy and Digital Literacy, and Romanian Language.
Name: Ascendia
Founders: Alex Malureanu (2007)
Focus: teaching content tool
Total funding: around €876K
Ascendia is a Romanian e-learning company creating online teaching content. Operating in 9 countries, the company is the first edtech listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange. Its main product, Livresq, is a lesson editor tool that helps publishing companies create digital school textbooks. In 2021, Ascendia also won a tender of €3.5M to execute the biggest public sector edtech project in Romania, Edulib, which will develop and adopt digital infrastructure and tools in the local education system.
Name: Adservio
Founders: Alexandru Holicov (2008)
Focus: school management software
Total funding: around €2.2M
Adservio is an online school management platform for schools and kindergartens approved by the Ministry of Education of Romania. The platform is available in 9 languages and has recently raised €2M in a funding round led by Catalyst Romania.
Name: iziBac
Founders: Raluca Bacinschi-Stratulat, Adrian Stratulat (2017)
Focus: gamified exam tutoring
Total funding: around €190K
IziBac is an educational mobile app that offers preparation for Romanian high school national exams through a gamification learning process. Led by a former teacher, IziBac provides video lessons that are focused on user engagement and knowledge retention.
Name: DO-IT
Founders: Daria Cupareanu (2021)
Focus: social app
Total funding: N/A (bootstrapping)
DO-IT is an interactive mobile application that provides young people with social interaction while developing their skills through efficient and fun challenges from cooking to critical thinking and other group challenges.
Greece
Name: Memby
Founders: Eimantas Bekeza, Silvestras Stonkus (2019)
Focus: online tutoring
Total funding: around €1M
Memby is a Lithuanian startup that entered the Greek edtech market last year after closing its pre-seed round with €850K led by Change Ventures. The company offers online tutoring services for high school students. Focused on student engagement, Memby is a digital platform offering group sessions where students can ask questions in real time, participate in group discussions and test their knowledge during and after the class.
Name: Morphoses
Founders: Anna Natsvlishvili, Alexandros Pithamitsis, Vasiliki (Ilia) Tzotzopoulou (2021)
Focus: soft skills development
Total funding: N/A
Morphoses is an educational platform focused on kids developing soft skills through social-emotional learning. The company works with educational institutions, as well as corporate employers who want to provide benefits for their employees-parents.
Name: Woli
Founders: Vasilis Zoupas, Filippos Antonopoulos
Focus: educational fintech
Total funding: around €700K (seed)
Woli is a Greek fintech company that also deserves being on the list among its edtech peers. Woli helps kids and teenagers (age 10-18) get educated on personal finances and develop good money skills from an early age. The company develops debit card and money app that help parents automate pocket money and kids learn to use it efficiently.
Name: Classter
Founders: Nikolaos Nukou
Focus: school management software
Total funding: around €612K (seed)
Classter is an end-to-to-end modular platform solution for digitizing academic processes in K12 schools, higher education institutions, and other academic centers. The company streamlines administrative operations, like admissions and enrollment management, student and alumni engagement, transportation and billing.
Kosovo
Name: Labbox Education
Founders: Arta Zaimi (2019)
Focus: electronics, engineering
Total funding: around €452K
Labbox Education is an edtech startup that helps kids learn science, electronics, and computer engineering while engaging them in fun and interactive challenges on a learning platform application.
If you are curious to learn more about edtech startups in Southeast Europe and their innovative education and technology solutions, check out our other articles too:
- 7 Skills future teachers should have according to EdTech founders
- Mapping: 20+ IT academies and tech universities in SEE that connect talent to business
- Romanian EdTech startups are riding the wave of booming digitalization
