The Dutch venture capitalist invests €350,000 in the company from The Hague. LessonUp has rapidly grown into the largest education platform in the Netherlands, used for digital teaching and learning by thousands of teachers in primary and secondary education. Over the course of 2 years, the platform has compiled a collection of more than 250,000 free lessons which can be used in class directly, created by the teachers as well as by publishers, museums and non-profits. With the new funds, LessonUp aims to further grow its team and to expand abroad.
It is LessonUp’s mission to collect all the outstanding educational content that’s developed everywhere worldwide and make it widely available to everyone. “Internet technology gives us the opportunity to offer the best resources from the best teachers to every child,” says Kars Veling, CTO and one of the founders of LessonUp. “Who doesn’t remember that teacher who always had a unique way and made things easier and more fun in class. Those lessons, we want them to become available not only to this teacher’s 30 students, but to 3,000 or even 300,000 students.”
Veling emphasizes that LessonUp also offers a practical solution: “When we started LessonUp, we mainly tried to solve the problem that it takes a serious amount of time to develop a fun and interactive lesson. Our solution was simple: we created a place where teachers could find inspiration and resources from colleagues everywhere, instead of reinventing the wheel over and over again.” And it pays off: a growing teacher community has embraced the platform and integrated it in its daily routine to work more efficiently.
Peak’s Stefan Bary adds: “We are very much impressed with the position LessonUp has managed to build in the education technology market: with 65,000 teachers and 200,000 students on board, the company shows that it can bring digitization into the classroom. With more than 250,000 lessons available in the platform, teachers can get started in their classrooms right away.”
Further growth
Not just teachers join LessonUp, institutions also benefit from the platform. For example, The Van Gogh Museum uses LessonUp to get its digital learning resources right into the classroom. The platform offers an audience of teachers and students who they’re not likely to reach through their own website. That reach, together with the interactive technology behind the platform, is the foremost reason for companies to distribute their digital materials via LessonUp.
The startup is working hard to expand their collection of educational resources that help teachers to be well equipped to teach the next generation of learners. “This is only the beginning. We’re anticipating for a serious acceleration and with Peak’s expertise and experience on board, it is definitely going to be a success,” says an ambitious Veling. “In the end, the goal is to have 200,000 students from all over the world simultaneously participating in interactive lessons being given by a single teacher.”